YNAB Budgeting App Review 2024

You Need a Budget, often called YNAB, is a money management app that follows the zero-based budgeting system and envelope method. It was founded in 2004 based on the following four rules:

• Give every dollar a job. You create a budget and a financial plan based on the concept of assigning all of your earnings to different expense categories.
• Embrace your real expenses. The app helps you break up large, difficult-to-anticipate expenses and long-term goals into smaller monthly targets.
• Roll with the punches. This rule allows you to adjust your budget and spending as life happens. If you overspend on one category, you can move funds over from another category to cover the cost.
• Age your money. To help you rein in your spending, YNAB encourages you to use money that’s been designated to a category for at least 30 days rather than new money.

The goal of YNAB is to save money through proactive budgeting. The company claims the average user can save $600 in the first two months of using the app and $6,000 in the first year.

After creating an account with YNAB, you build your budget using expenses and savings targets. YNAB uses zero-based budgeting, a strategy that requires you to assign categories to all of your recurring and irregular expenses and put 100% of your income toward these until you’re left with zero dollars.

By using this strategy to give every dollar you earn a job, and following YNAB’s four rules, you can be precise about your expenses and see where your money goes without any guessing. YNAB provides a DIY budget planning workbook to help you get started and offers an auto-assign feature to take some of the categorizing off your plate.

At the end of each month, you’ll be able to see which categories had positive balances and which ones had negative balances. Positive indicates that you spent less than you allocated and negative indicates that you overspent. YNAB also provides spending, net worth and income reports to help you visualize your finances and show you how you’re doing with various goals.

YNAB takes a proactive approach to budgeting. Users of the app are actively involved in setting goals, adding expenses and adjusting their budgets as needed. You start with default budget categories, but you also can create your own to fit your specific needs.

For automated importing of transactions, you can link a bank account to YNAB, but it’s not required. Keep in mind that manually adding transactions to your YNAB account may require a lot of extra time and effort.

You can create categories within your budget for bills, but YNAB doesn’t have an internal bill pay feature. It only allows you to earmark funds toward those expenses. If you use credit cards to pay for purchases, you can set up a credit card payment category and use it to filter funds from other categories as you enter transactions. If it sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it’s a much more involved process than with many other budgeting apps.

Security

Security is always a priority whenever you connect financial or personal information to third-party software. YNAB employs standard security and safety best practices to protect customers. YNAB protects your personal and financial information through the latest encryption technology, enhanced login measures and other security protocols. You can also email YNAB’s security team with any security-related questions or concerns.

Pricing

YNAB is a paid app and one of the more expensive ones to use at that. Users can sign up for $14.99 per month or opt for an annual subscription for $99 per year. YNAB comes with a 100% money-back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied with the app.

You can also sign up for a 34-day trial of YNAB to test and see if it’s a good fit for your budgeting needs. No credit card is required to sign up for the free trial.

Other App Tools

YNAB lets you track other financial accounts like investment accounts. However, the tracking takes a bit more work, compared to other budgeting apps. You may be better off using another budgeting app specifically to track investments if that’s a feature that’s important to you.

The app also includes access to a net worth report to track your financial health. Users can pick which linked accounts to include. The report shows your account balances as well as any debts you’re currently paying down.

YNAB requires a little more time and attention to learn than other budgeting apps that are more “set it and forget it.” The good news is that YNAB doesn’t leave it up to you to learn how to successfully navigate the app alone.

Your YNAB account also comes with access to dozens of live workshops each week covering every aspect of the app and how to budget using YNAB. There are also hundreds of helpful articles and guides, a YNAB podcast and an online forum to help you get started and to answer questions as they arise.

YNAB is available across a variety of platforms. The budgeting app originally started as just a desktop application but has expanded to include availability for:

• iPhone
• iPad
• Apple Watch
• Android
• Alexa

The YNAB mobile app receives high ratings on the App Store (4.8 stars out of 5) and Google Play (4.8 stars out of 5).

Budgeting often carries a negative connotation, either for being too restrictive or too hard to maintain. YNAB’s proactive approach goes against some other budgeting apps, which present a more hands-off approach. Using YNAB may require more work than using another app or software, but that’s on purpose to keep users engaged in their finances.

YNAB is more expensive than some other budgeting apps and lacks some features outside of budgeting found with its competitors. You can track investment accounts with YNAB, but it’s not one of its primary features. YNAB is first and foremost a budgeting tool. If you’re looking for help to design a real-time budget that actually works, YNAB may be a good fit, even at its current price.

YNAB vs. PocketGuard

PocketGuard is a budgeting app for anyone looking to control their spending. Both PocketGuard and YNAB let you sync bank accounts, credit cards and loans for easy monitoring, but PocketGuard also includes bill-tracking features. PocketGuard differs from YNAB in that it automatically calculates your spendable money for you based on your goals and expenses, while YNAB requires you to do this for yourself.

PocketGuard has a free option, unlike YNAB, as well as a paid option. PocketGuard Plus is less expensive than YNAB at either $7.99 a month, $34.99 a year or $79.99 for a lifetime subscription. YNAB is ideal for zero-based budgeting and taking your spending into your own hands. PocketGuard is the better option if you want to improve your finances while having everything automatically updated for you.