You Need a Budget on SALE for only $15!!!

[pryncess527]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/227320/

This is the best price I've never seen on it, only Steam sales get the price that low. The sale ends at 7pm EST on Thursday, Aug 29th.

You Need a Budget is hands down the best thing that ever happened to my family's finances. It's a great program, no subscription fee, that makes it easy to budget-to-zero. We've gotten incredible clarity about our finances, and been able to eliminate numerous extra accounts while still tracking our various savings goals. There is also a free android and iphone app (and a third party windows phone app) that lets you track spending and view your budget on the go.

Anyway, I know many people on here use it and love it, and since this is such a huge discount that lasts a short time I thought I'd draw it to everyone's attention.

http://www.youneedabudget.com/

There is also a 30 day free trial you can try out. Steam ran this same 75% off sale over the summer, and will likely run it again at Christmas, so IMHO it's worth exploring even if you aren't prepared to buy now. It's really hard for me to over emphasize how amazing this program has been for our family and our conversations about money.

I swear I don't work for them, I just love YNAB that much. Proselytizing is a common side effect experienced by new users

 

[RitaE]

Man, I almost wish I didn't own it so I could buy it at that price.

 

[mamilovesdisney]

Why is this so great? I am in need of a program for a budget but not sure which is best.

 

[Disney Princess]

What is Steam? We actually watched the free "get started" webinar last night, and we are ready to go. I was going to download the free trial, but if I can save that much, I might as well go ahead and buy it. But I don't know what this "steam" website is. Will it be the actual program? Will I have to do something with steam now?

Thanks!

 

[pryncess527]

Why is this so great? I am in need of a program for a budget but not sure which is best.

It's great, IMHO, because it is the only budgeting program I've ever found that's about deciding what your dollars need to do before you get paid again, instead of just kind of retroactively assessing what you've spent.

I know many people on here are familiar with Dave Ramsey, he also encourages a budget-to-zero approach, so if you've read him then many of the principles of YNAB may be familiar to you.

I love it because making decisions about spending used to be guesswork to me. I was never really sure if we could afford something, I'd just kind of guess based on our bank balance. Now, instead of looking at our bank balance I look at our budget categories and so when I spent some of "Jenny's Fun Money" last week, it was 100% guilt free because I knew I would not need that money later. It's only job was to be spent on something fun for me.

it's also helped us prepare for irregular spending. We have a master category, "Annual Expected Bills" where we save up for things we know happen once a year, like car insurance, taxes, car registration, etc. Now when those big expenses come up, I'm ready for them instead of having to juggle other things.

And lastly, my favorite thing about it is that when my husband and I sit down for our monthly budget meeting, the facts are there in black and white. If he wants a new guitar, he needs to save up his fun money until he can afford one, since a new guitar is not a household need. It's not my fault, I'm not the bad guy saying no, it's just a simple fact of the budget.
If we decide, together, we want to go out to a fancy dinner and don't have enough money left in our restaurant budget, that's fine, we just have to decide what category the money will come from (and it can't be one of those annual expenses!), and that clarity helps us balance our priorities and figure out if we really want to have that expensive meal, or if we'd rather not rob the vacation category (or whatever category must be raided) in order to pay for it.

 

[pryncess527]

What is Steam? We actually watched the free "get started" webinar last night, and we are ready to go. I was going to download the free trial, but if I can save that much, I might as well go ahead and buy it. But I don't know what this "steam" website is. Will it be the actual program? Will I have to do something with steam now?

Thanks!

Steam is a program typically used for playing video games. It's a free download. if you buy the copy through steam, you can then activate a regular download copy and not actually have to use Steam ever again.
http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/article/using-ynab-on-steam

 

[RitaE]

Why is this so great? I am in need of a program for a budget but not sure which is best.

Most Financial Software packages tend to be more of a reporting function as to what already has happened and then you see how you did in regards to how you think you should have done. In other words, you have a budget every month and then you go do your thing and then you look at what was over or under budget.

YNAB has you take the money you have on hand and in your accounts and then you decide what to do with that money before any of it is spent. It emphasizes looking at your budget BEFORE you spend money and if their isn't room in the budget, then you have to decide what other spending is going to be reduced to accommodate you going over.

It also encourages you working toward building a one month buffer in your accounts so eventually the money that you spend in a month is the money that you actually earned last month. In other words, all our paychecks for August have been marked as income for September so when we get to September we know exactly what we can spend because we know exactly what we earned. September income is then reserved for October. It takes most people about 6 to 12 months to build up that buffer.

 

[KalamityJane]

OMG!! Thank you! We love YNAB, but I have version 3, and couldn't stomach putting out 60 bucks for it again - thank you!!

 

[Disney Princess]

Thank you for clarifying about Steam. I downloaded it now - I was already set to Budget away, and now I did it at 75% off. Thank you so much!

 

[mamilovesdisney]

Thanks! I am giving it a ahot and purchased it it has a few quirks since i have to use it with the stream software in order for ynab to open on my mac ;( but hopefully it will work out great!

 

[wannagoback]

YNAB has changed my life. That's all.

 

[pryncess527]

Thanks! I am giving it a ahot and purchased it it has a few quirks since i have to use it with the stream software in order for ynab to open on my mac ;( but hopefully it will work out great!

You won't need to run Steam every time. You can run the program in Steam, get the activation key (Help>About>Copy Activation Key to Clipboard in the YNAB menu.)

and then download a copy directly from the YNAB website and activate that. Then you'll never need to bother with Steam again (and can uninstall it)

 

[TifffanyD]

OK I bought it but this is the biggest pain in the butt. How do I open the YNAB program? I have the steam thing up and it shows I purchased it but can't figure out how to open.

 

[pryncess527]

OK I bought it but this is the biggest pain in the butt. How do I open the YNAB program? I have the steam thing up and it shows I purchased it but can't figure out how to open.

at the top of Steam, click on Library, then All Software. That should pull up a page for YNAB where you can hit the Launch button to open the program.

Once you run it and get the activation key, you can activate a normal copy and stop using Steam.

 

[TifffanyD]

at the top of Steam, click on Library, then All Software. That should pull up a page for YNAB where you can hit the Launch button to open the program.

Once you run it and get the activation key, you can activate a normal copy and stop using Steam.

Thank you! Got most of it done except the uninstalling Steam - it is now saying I'm not an admin on my pc Whatever

This should be interesting. For some reason it is showing a deduction in a category on my phone that I don't have on my pc. Oh I hope it syncs up lol

 

[pryncess527]

Thank you! Got most of it done except the uninstalling Steam - it is now saying I'm not an admin on my pc Whatever

This should be interesting. For some reason it is showing a deduction in a category on my phone that I don't have on my pc. Oh I hope it syncs up lol

If both accounts have Dropbox syncing enabled and are looking at the same Dropbox file, then the sync should happen pretty quickly.

 

[TifffanyD]

If both accounts have Dropbox syncing enabled and are looking at the same Dropbox file, then the sync should happen pretty quickly.

Hm not sure what is up.

Under Pool Service it shows: $0 budget - $0 spent = $100 overspent. Crazy math

 

[elgerber]

I'm not sure something like this would work for me? It is based on checking account balance, but I hide a lot of my checking account funds in Quicken, in savings goals, so in my Quicken view they are no longer part of my balance. Does anyone do this, and use this type of program?

 

[CluelessDisFan]

For the past couple of months, I've been telling my DH we need to have better control of our spending, and start saving more. That hasn't happened, because we always discuss it, then nothing gets done about it. How well does this program work for people with commission pay scales?

My DH is paid a low salary (20% of his income) and then gets a monthly commission (80% of his income). His over all yearly pay has gone up for the last 3 years, and so has our spending. We keep making more, but never truly accomplish anything. Every time the idea of zero budget comes up, I keep thinking that's impossible to do.

 

[pryncess527]

I'm not sure something like this would work for me? It is based on checking account balance, but I hide a lot of my checking account funds in Quicken, in savings goals, so in my Quicken view they are no longer part of my balance. Does anyone do this, and use this type of program?

It is NOT based on your checking account balance. You assign money to budget categories and make spending decisions based on those categories. S I think it will work very well for you. There are many ex Quicken users on the YNAB forums