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| You Need A Budget Pro - Personal Finance Software Program | 
 enlarge | From: You Need A Budget
Category: Software
Buy New: $49.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  67 reviews
Sales Rank: 351
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Windows Xp
Media: CD-ROM
Model: 1.2.6
UPC: 793573437488
ASIN: B000QO76HU
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 LIFE CHANGING from a Former Microsoft Money User September 18, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I was looking for a book about Microsoft Money Plus on Amazon.com....and was intrigued by this program. I am so glad to make the switch. If you can't purchase here, find a way. :)
I have been using MS Money since 2004. It is great at tracking the past. I have great data to use for numbers in my YNAB budget. I was frustrated with MS for a few reasons.
1) Some things I spent and catagorized were not showing up in some reports even though they were entered correctly (how do I know anything else is accurate?)
2) I never really learned how to use it "correctly" because support is next to nothing on it.
3) I ran into a limitation when I tried to put in the car we just refinanced and I couldn't put in any "early" payments. Apparently no one in the world would want to make a payment before it was due and want to keep track of interest on a loan. Our car is our highest effective interest rate at present and we are looking to knock it out in a hurry.
4) I also question the logic behind some of the assumptions the program makes and don't get a satisfactory explanation.
5) Uncertain of tracking of credit card charges in cash flow forecaster (was dropping numbers). Despite this, I liked the cash flow forecaster concept because it was the only real clue I had to go forward in time. Still this is being at "effect" because I couldn't fully control enough of the assumptions (and if I changed one, it only would show me 3 months).
I am working on a workaround to project forward in YNAB Pro, and will update my post on their support forum if it works. Actually found many suggestions on the forum and tweaking my own as of this post.
Now we are at CAUSE, bossing our money around.
Because of previous experience working in Money, YNAB Pro forced me to sit down and look at what I really want to record and how, to learn the program as intended (from tutorials) and get answers to questions (through the discussion board). In some cases, there isn't one way to do things, there are "ways" and then I may think of my own way. Which I have. Flexibility is a wonderful attibute of the program. It is intuitive, but it did take some work and thought (mainly because I want more out of a program than the average person). As I've worked through it, many times I have thought, "That was something that used to bug me in Money AND YNAB DID IT SO MUCH SMARTER."
I was going to continue using Money, but Pro forced my bank downloads to it. I don't care. I don't need the other program. I can go back to look at old numbers anytime. I'm looking to the future...
I'm going to go to online bill pay instead of printing my own checks and got a good old fashioned check book for church. (I almost forgot how to write one.)
The "buffer" concept is brilliant.
I actually set up master catagories based on our goals and put in there where we WANT to be.
I combined budget ideas from an article "the 60% solution" that popped up in Money a long time ago, (the only one I ever read) but was clueless as to how to implement within their program... Go to MSN and search for the 60% solution.
I looked at ideas from Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth by T Harv Ecker.
I looked at Dave Ramsey's suggested amounts from one of his books I looked at for free in the bookstore. I put those within the notes beside each section of my subcategories (LOVE THE NOTES FEATURE).
I also think it is important that you prioritize what you want. I decided to call things positive names so we are always going toward what we want.
We now have a strategy.
We have a plan.
I believe God wants us to master our money, otherwise it will master us.
I thank God for this program, its creators, those who support it through their time on the boards. SUPPORT SUPPORT SUPPORT. Truly exceptional.
You Need A Budget ... you do. But you also really want one if you want to be in charge of your money.
God bless.
Hands down, the best budgeting program ever created September 12, 2008
I bought this 6 months ago and found it to be the best investment I ever made. You'll quickly learn whether your living within your means. If your serious about getting out of debt or just want a sound budgeting program, here it is. YNAB Pro will give you the information you need to change your spending habits.
YNAB quickly automates what people spend hours doing every month, trying to figure out what needs to be paid, what has been paid, how much money is left, and save for future expenses that get billed 3,6, or 12 months out.
I highly recommend YNAB Pro for yourself and also as gifts for friends and family.
Excellent software September 8, 2008
This software is excellent! It does a great job of helping you keep up with your budget. Quicken does a horrible job at the budgeting side of things. The latest version also has great performance improvements.
I like the clean interface without all the advertisements that Quicken has embedded in it. YNAB also doesn't force you to upgrade every year or so.
The biggest weakness is in reporting, but that is high on the todo list for the developers.
Getting through college debt-free September 2, 2008
As a college student on a very tight budget I'm VERY happy with YNAB. The customer service is awesome because it's a smaller company. It has an open-ended, flexible feel that other software doesn't have and is still pretty easy to pick up with the video tutorials. At the same time it has "rules" that help me not live from one week's plasma donation cash to the next :-) Alright I don't actually donate plasma for money, but if I didn't use YNAB I might have too... It was worth it for me, and probably would be for anyone else trying to get through school debt-free and independent.
Stress free for the first time! August 31, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As others have stated here, I have been a Quicken user for years (since the old "blue screen" days). However, I only used quicken as a checkbook register, and I was never really concerned that much with "budgeting" my money.....that is, until I found myself $30,000 in credit card debt, making minimum payments on everything and finding that I always had too much month left at the end of my money!
Then, in December 2007, my wife lost her job ... I was in a panic; now what would we do? How would we get by? As things turned out, she was entitled to six months severance pay under the terms of a merger agreement when her company was bought out. In addition, she found a new job with a 30% pay increase within two weeks of her severance date.
We both decided that it was time to get our financial house in order. With her severance pay, we paid off half of our credit card debt and put a little money into savings for emergencies. And, with the new job and the pay increase, we had a little breathing room ... but we really needed to do something about budgeting and learning to live within our means.
I tried for two months to make Quicken's budgeting process work for me ... but I never could figure out where or how Quicken arrived at what it spit out at me each month ... I tried creating my own spreadsheets ... but nothing seemed to work for me. Then, I did some "googling" and found You Need A Budget (YNAB). I spent several days on their website reviewing the tutorials and reading user reviews before I forked over the money to buy a copy of the software myself.
I HAVE NEVER LOOKED BACK! I must admit, I had to start over twice with YNAB ... not because the software is difficult to use ... but because I was trying to use it based upon what I knew about budgeting ... you can't do that .. YNAB is designed to work based upon 4 simple rules of budgeting ... once you come to fully understand those 4 rules ... how simple they are and how radically different they are to everything you thought you knew about budgeting ... you have a "light bulb" moment, and after that, you and YNAB Pro become the best of friends!
I sleep much better at night these days, thanks to YNAB Pro! Now, thanks to some hard work, discipline (which NO software can give you), and the financial road map that YNAB has enabled me to keep and to live by, I now have a fully funded buffer! What does that mean? Simply that the bills I pay today are paid with the money I earned last month. The money I earn this month will go to pay my bills for next month. I no longer have to worry about whether a check I've written will get to the bank before my paycheck does! No more late payments, no more late fees!
With the plan I have created using YNAB Pro, I will be credit card debt free by March 2010, but I'll go on using YNAB Pro long after that! And, even if YNAB Pro decided tomorrow to charge an annual upgrade fee (which they don't), I'd pay it anyway! The software is just that good and has become just that important in my life. And, the community on the YNAB website forums are the friendliest and most encouraging folks you could ever meet ... and they come from all walks of life and from almost every part of the world!
I still use Quicken, and some day, I may give it up! But, I won't part with my YNAB Pro software. My only regret is that I didn't have YNAB Pro 20 years ago! If I had, I'd be sitting on a pile of money right now!
YNAB Pro does one thing, and it does it better than anything else I could find on the web: it helps me plan where I am going to spend my money! But make no mistake: that plan is only as good as your willingness and commitment to live within your means and to make that plan work!
I've made YNAB Pro a partner in my efforts to become debt free and financially independent. While I have a way to go yet, I just cannot express in words the sense of freedom and the level of stress reduction I have come to enjoy in my life in the six short months I have been using the software. It was the BEST money I have ever spent!
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