Budget software

[Anonymous]

Another user of a home-grown, customized, Excel spreadsheet user here.  I will need to check out YNAB and ED.  I have/tried Mint but I found it too constraining for what I wanted to do.

[heyitsyeh]

Mint is enough for me

[too-much-time]

Here are a couple of pompous reviewers of YANB and Mint who sound like they write for a teenage fashion magazine and are forever stuck inside that world.

"If you already got a handle on your debt and monthly expenditures, then YNAB isn’t for you. It really does one thing and one thing well — budgeting." "Mint.com’s service seems to be more focused on catering to the masses. It’s very strong with budgeting and tracking expenses, but its investing area is simplistic at best." Ouch.

Their grammar needs some growing up too. One uses commas with compound predicates. "YNAB is about planning, and is built on the idea of a zero-based budget." "YNAB has an easy to use interface, and is simple to set up.” The other doesn’t know the difference between nouns and verbs. "It’s free to signup” "Budgeting is super easy to setup”.

They do have a point though. Does a time come when you have outgrown YANB and Mint?

[lg8302ch]

My favorite combination is YNAB and Mint... simply love YNAB and their great tutorials which makes the start easier.  The software is compatible with mobile devices and it does synch. Just have to enter the stuff and this is my weak point.

[lg8302ch]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Dave Ramsey just released a free software called EveryDollar.  Functionally the same as YNAB, but for free.

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Thanks for this suggestion... I will test it and compare to YNAB   ..looks very promising at first sight.

[SCF]

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@too-much-time wrote:

They do have a point though. Does a time come when you have outgrown YANB and Mint?

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Maybe, but I think most people benefit from consistently tracking and monitoring how they spend their money.  For most people, it is a finite resource, and you usually have more goals (at least if you start to include the far-fetched ones) than you do dollars.  As long as that's still the case, you need to be doing some form of planning.  I'd imagine that you could get a lot more general or casual in your use over time though, as some of the lessons you learn become second nature.

[Anonymous]

YNAB is my favorite software! Try Dave Ramsey's software, it's free.