TL;DR: YNAB IS AMAZING!!!
Quite a while ago I wrote a thread about wanting to try YNAB. I was on the fence, but had heard many good things about it. So January of this year I finally bit the bullet. We are Steam users, so during the Holiday Sale I was able to get YNAB for $20. That $20 is easily one of the best financial decisions I have ever made.
A little bit of back story: my husband and I are pretty fiscally responsible. He has never paid credit card interest in his LIFE, and I have not paid any in about 7 years. That being said, we were totally on the credit card float. We were charging things on our credit card, and then I had to wait for the check to come in, pay the card, and then I would be left with nothing in our checking account. The snag started coming when I went several months unable to put money into savings due to making sure the credit card was paid in full.
Now I will be the first to say that YNAB may not be for everyone. It is a program that I think someone can write on their own in excel. In another forum a poster described it as "hand holding budgeting".... maybe. That being said, YNAB's methods along with their ideology has hit home to me in regards to finance. If my hand is being held, or if it is a glorified excel spread sheet, so be it.
Earlier this year I would have been happy to keep an average daily balance in my checking account of $300. Since starting YNAB our average daily balance has jumped to $1000, $1500, $2000, $2500... and now we are at $4000 for the last couple of months. Our savings has increased to where we are putting 32% of our net away for car repairs, vacation, technology fund, and long term housing goals. That is not including the money that we keep in our checking account that we put away just for him, me, and us. We are trying to increase our savings to 42%, which is what my husband figured we can comfortably put away without being upsetting our lifestyle, and eventually 50% when he graduates.
Another victory: We have finally broken the paycheck to paycheck cycle and EVERYTHING is on autopay now. A year ago if you asked me to put my credit card on autopay in FULL I would have said NO WAY! I don't know if the money is going to be there. Not so, anymore. This has been a huge stress relief for me. I can let Discover take their money, and go in the next day and update my own records. I don't have to worry about my paycheck coming in!
Another thing that is has helped me realize is how I don't have to live on exactly how much I earn. I can live on less. A LOT less. My husband is a grad student in a STEM field. He has been fortunate to get through his entire schooling without accruing student debt, but the pay that the school gave him was still only slightly above slave labor. He just secured a job with a contractor who will be paying for his school the rest of his time getting his PhD AND they substantially increased his income. This is HUGE for us. We have decided to continue living on the same amount that he was making before (we've done it for 3 years, anyway!) and possibly investing his second paycheck of the month. It is something I was going to talk to our bank about.
We are also now currently trying to conceive. We have challenged ourselves that when we do get pregnant to not increase our cost of living by anything drastic. He has been reading Mr. Money Mustache and he is confident that we will be able to do this.
Soooo, in parting, most of our recent financial comfort I do credit to YNAB. Of course finances are like dieting: you can be given the equipment, but if you don't stick to the rules you are not going to get anywhere. So I do recognize that changing our mindset and habits is part of our success as well, but to give credit where credit is due YNAB is what made me realize it was time for a change.
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