YNAB Review [2024]: Detailed Budgeting To Get Control of Your Money

You Need A Budget (YNAB) is a budgeting app that helps people get a handle on their finances. When you’re using YNAB, you create an in-depth budget that assigns a job to every dollar you earn. Although it’s more expensive than many competitors, it offers several features that could help you save money, pay off debt, or budget for the future.

I love its flexibility, educational tools (including webinars), and its approach to managing credit cards. You’ll want to figure out what type of budgeter you are before committing to YNAB, and you get a free trial to test everything out using your real income and spending.

YNAB at a glance

Price	$14.99 a month or $109 a year (paid annually), plus taxes where applicable
Features	Create and maintain multiple budgets Automatic account syncing to your bank accounts Real-time expense tracking and updates Goal tracking Responsive customer support Split transactions across budgets Pay off debt by setting goals Spending and net worth reports Loan calculator Share budgets with up to six people through YNAB Together Continuing education through videos, workshops, blog articles, and online support
	Visit YNAB

Who is YNAB best for?

YNAB is best for people who like to dive deep into their money and keep a close eye on their monthly expenses. If you already have experience with following a budget and tracking transactions, that can be helpful as well.

There’s no reason not to try it out since you get a little over a month to use YNAB for free, which enables you to see how your budget plays out in real-time. If you’re ready to spend the time required to get the most out of YNAB’s features, it could be the ideal budgeting app for you.

Who shouldn’t use YNAB?

• New budgeters
• Budgeters who want a simple solution
• Budgeters who get lost in details

If you’re a new budgeter or want a hands-off approach to your money management, a different app may work better. Since YNAB offers a free 34-day trial and doesn’t require a credit card to sign up, it can be worth checking out to see if it's a good fit.

I write about budgets and personal finance every day, and I still found it a little overwhelming to arrange my budget categories on YNAB at first. That’s not to say it wouldn’t be worth it over time, but there are less complicated budgeting apps to consider. Plus, free apps like Goodbudget that might let you get your feet wet as a budgeter before diving all the way in with YNAB.

YNAB’s approach to budgeting

Buckle up, because YNAB takes a much more hands-on approach to budgeting than other personal finance apps. Users are actively involved in maintaining their budgets, and to get the most out of the app will need to spend time reviewing and categorizing their finances through the platform.

To better manage your money, the YNAB budgeting tool follow four rules:

Rule 1: Give every dollar a job

With YNAB, you set aside every dollar you earn into a corresponding budget category. By giving every dollar a purpose, you determine how you’ll use it before it's spent, which can help you stick to your financial goals and avoid impulse purchases.

Rule 2: Embrace your true expenses

How often have you been surprised by expenses that crop up less frequently than once a month? For me, it’s always credit card annual fees—I panic for about two seconds when I see that transaction until I remember.

YNAB addresses this issue, allowing you to budget for costs that happen less frequently, like birthday or holiday gifts or unexpected repairs. You can create multiple targeted savings categories within the app that are funded a little bit each month to avoid going into debt.

Rule 3: Roll with the punches

I don’t know about you, but I don’t always stick to exact budget limits once I’ve set them. While learning how to manage your money, you might go over budget in one category. YNAB lets you move funds from another to help you cover the costs. It’s a flexible app that doesn’t expect everything to go as planned.

Rule 4: Age your money

This is a cool aspect of YNAB I’ve always liked. The program emphasizes the goal of spending last month’s income on the current month’s expenses.

If you stick with YNAB long enough, you can break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Doesn’t that sound freeing? No one wants to be waiting anxiously for their paycheck to hit their account every month, anxious about whether they have enough to cover bills as they come due. Aging your money lets you get out of that stressful way of living.

Other features of YNAB

Other than the four tenets that help you to focus on managing your money well, there are other great features of the app.

Real-time syncing: YNAB will securely sync with your bank accounts and credit cards and automatically update your transactions across devices. It can also sync with your investment accounts, but if you link them to YNAB, you’ll have to make manual adjustments within the app.

Goal Tracking: Using the goals feature can help you save for multiple targets at once, and the app will show your progress toward a specific goal.

Run reports: YNAB features various reports to help you compare your spending over time, review your net worth, or see how your income compares to your expenses.

Review your spending: Use progress bars to help you check how much is left in a budgeting category or track a goal. You can turn the colorful progress bars off if you find them distracting or leave them on for at-a-glance budget updates.

Split transactions: Some stores make it easy to get groceries, clothing, and electronics in one place, but you may need to split one extensive shopping trip among several budgeting categories. YNAB lets you allocate specific dollar amounts to better track your spending.

Share your budget: Partners or families can create and share budgets under the YNAB Together feature. You can choose which budgets your partner sees and even which member has permission to edit or remove budgets or bank accounts.

Continuing education: YNAB also has guides, live Q&As, workshops, a blog, and YouTube videos with tips and instructions on making the most of the app. You can learn about app-specific features and how-to's and find answers to general personal finance questions.

How does YNAB help you spend less?

YNAB says it helps users save an average of $600 by their second month of using the method and app and around $6,000 their first year.

Wiser spending habits

Although every person is different, being hands-on with your money via YNAB could help you make better decisions. Ideally, you would use the app to check in on your budget categories before you hand over your debit card, making you more conscious of your spending.

If you’re someone who responds well to monitoring, this is an excellent strategy. It works for me much like when pursuing health goals — I make better diet and exercise choices when I’m tracking those parts of my life. It’s the same with money.

Credit card tracking

You can also use credit cards within YNAB if you prefer so you can earn credit card rewards. It automatically moves money from your budget to your credit card account payment category.

For example, if you spend $30 at a grocery store on a credit card, YNAB will move $30 from your grocery category to your credit card payment category. When it’s time to make a credit card payment, you pay the amount in your credit card payment category, assuming your goal is not to accumulate more debt.

Setting money goals

Setting goals within your budget allows you to focus on your priorities and understand how your spending habits affect them. If you give in to an impulse purchase, you won't have enough for your savings or debt repayment, slowing down your progress.

Using the spending target within a budget category can help you see your progress toward your goal. You can focus on savings you’ll need for spending in the future, like vacations, yearly fees, down payments, or your emergency fund. You can also create a monthly savings builder and accumulate a set amount each month to grow until it's needed.

Other budgeting apps to consider

If YNAB doesn’t sound like the right app for you, or you’re wondering how it compares to other available budgeting apps, check out a couple of its competitors.

Rocket Money

Rocket Money is free, but it does offer a premium service that costs between $6 and $12 per month on a pay-what-you-want or can-afford basis. This includes some additional features that YNAB doesn’t offer like automated subscription cancellations, expanded budgeting features, net worth calculations, real-time account syncing, and refunded overdrafts and late fees.

If you’re looking for a budgeting app that can also help you lower your bills (and for a potentially lower subscription cost), Rocket Money might fit the bill.

Learn more about Rocket Money

Quicken Simplifi

The Quicken Simplifi personal finance tool is a simpler way to pursue budgeting successfully. It’s less expensive than YNAB at $3.59 per month. And although it doesn’t technically give a free trial period, you can cancel within 30 days to have your subscription fee refunded.

I like this option if you want a more economical budgeting app that’s easier to figure out. YNAB has a steep learning curve.

You get a lot for your $3.59 per month with Quicken Simplifi (compared to $9.08 per month with YNAB, and that’s only on the annual plan). Plus, if the idea of YNAB’s more complicated programming and features freaks you out, Quicken Simplfii can help you become really good at creating and following a budget without the pressure of a higher fee.

Learn more in this Simplifi vs. YNAB comparison.

FAQs

Bottom line

Although YNAB takes time to set up and can be a little daunting to figure out, dedicating time to your budget will likely help you improve your finances.

YNAB may be worth the subscription fee, especially if you like using a zero-based budgeting system and knowing where every cent goes and how it's working for you. Whatever personal finance app you choose, determine what you need from your budgeting software and how you can best manage your money.