YNAB for Budgeting During Ch 13

[anigrrrl2]

I have never used a budgeting app before, just Google sheets for tracking spending and bills. But I want to have more of a plan for saving and looking ahead as we move through the bankruptcy process, and so I downloaded YNAB.

Has anyone used this and had success? Or is there something better? I’m not really understanding how this is any different than a spreadsheet but I’m giving it a go. Mostly I want to make sure we’re contributing to our savings and moving toward saving to move eventually, as well as having a nice cushion in case of emergencies.

Any insight would be much appreciated! Thanks!

[justbroke]

I just used a spreadsheet. I'm in the I/T industry and YNAB is a little much for me but could be very useful. With that said, YNAB may be better for being able to visualize where the money is spent and how you are doing on a targeted savings goal. I subscribe to YNAB but haven't touched it in ... weeks.

[eap82]

I use a spreadsheet with each paycheck and due date arranged so that I know what bill comes from what check and make sure I have enough left over from each check for disposable income. In addition to my spreadsheet I've used mint and now use monarch money to visually see a plan and budget for my discretionary spending. It helps me to stay on track. I did not like YNAB, it was too confusing. I really like monarch money, the fee is nominal and they have a free trial period to see if you like it first.

[flashoflight]

YNAB is complex and their documentation sucks. There are YouTube videos by 3rd parties that make it a lot quicker to learn and I would highly recommend YouTube for this. It's a ton of work to setup and still takes quite a bit of time to maintain. I'd use it for a couple of months and then forget about it (don't renew). Some of the connections to the financial institutions are unreliable so your numbers don't get updated.

I've heard EveryDollar is simpler than YNAB which is a good thing. The complexity and time sink of YNAB is a huge negative to me despite the rich feature set.