Have you ever attempted to create a budget from scratch on a Monday only to find yourself purchasing an unnecessary almond croissant on the way to work on a Friday? Budgeting is tough. With all the will in the world and good intentions to boot, you simply cannot make your spending habits and income work in harmony. This is why people are beginning to fall head over heels in love with You Need A Budget.
Falling into the red at the end of every month is commonplace in the 21st century, but it doesn’t need to become the norm. People want to gain the financial freedom to help them out of debt so that they can become free from the economic shackles that ties them to jobs, relationships, locations, and emotions.
You Need A Budget is award-winning software that enables people to achieve their financial goals. It doesn’t matter whether you want to take control of your savings or whether you want to clear the shocking amount of debt that you try to forget about every month, You Need A Budget can help you do this.
Who Are the People Behind the Budgeting Ideas?
Jesse and Julie Mecham are the brains behind the You Need A Budget app. These two young lovebirds met and married in 2003 as childhood sweethearts. Their hearts were filled with love, joy, sunshine and rainbows, but they were also in need of cash. Still being at school meant that they had to buy books for study, they needed a home, and they needed to feed themselves. Love wasn’t going to give them that. Instead, they decided to… wait for it… make a budget.
Their goal was simple: Only spend what you can afford.
Quickly, they developed the YNAB set of rules that enabled them to budget effectively and remain debt-free:
- Work out exactly where money was going before it was to be spent. Frivolous almond croissants were a no-no.
- Those large “once in a blue moon” expenses that crept up on them were budgeted for monthly and broken down into more manageable chunks.
- The budget was a working document and could be changed depending on circumstances.
- Money was only spent once it had been in the bank for at least a month.
Jesse and Julie were able to live quite comfortably sticking to this YNAB way of thinking. Their way of budgeting had legs as a message that could be spread to the masses. They put on their thinking caps and worked hard to craft a business model that could empower others to follow their financial dreams of freedom.
In 2004, their You Need A Budget venture was born. While a small entity, the You Need A Budget team is passionate about creating the most effective and realistic personal budgeting software known to humankind. They will not rest until people can pay off their debts, marriages have been saved, stress has been banished, and anxieties have been relieved. Who would have thought a piece of budgeting software could prevent those arguments about money that lead to divorce? Jesse and Julie (alongside their team) have a single goal — to empower others to budget effectively so that they can enjoy life and all it has to offer without the worry of money.
What Jesse and Julie didn’t realize was the knock-on effect a great budgeting app could have. Yes, they were empowering others to take control of their own financial destiny, get back in the black, and remove the stresses of financial worries from their lives. But they were also enabling people to find a new sense of happiness, they were saving relationships, and they were preventing people from falling into the depths of despair. They could never have foreseen just how much of a positive force for good that their budgeting software could be.
The Team
The YNAB team is a diverse bunch of friendly people who have really bought into the vision set by Jesse and Julie. The culture that has been fostered within the YNAB team is friendly, caring, and enthusiastic. Team members live all over the globe from Brazil to Pakistan. Everyone has a role to play and everyone understands the impact that they are making in developing applications that can help people to take control of their lives.
What Are the Rules Again?
Jesse and Julie are big on the four rules of budgeting. Stick to these — and implement them effectively — and you could enjoy a lifetime of financial freedom. The YNAB app allows you to budget well because it is built with these four rules at its core. Let’s look at them in a little bit more detail this time:
Every Cent That You Have Needs to Be Given a Role to Play
When we earn money, we can become seduced by the allure of our wants rather than our needs. If you see your monthly paycheck land in your account at the end of every month, don’t assume that all of this cash is disposable income to buy your latest whims. Instead, you need to give every dollar a job. Know exactly where your money is going and what it needs to be spent on.
Without this rule, you may assume that you are rich and can splash the cash on fancy meals out or big-ticket items. This will quickly see your money fritter through your fingers and you will be left with next to nothing to ensure that you have the basics covered. These are the jobs that you need to give to your dollars. Rather than heading out for a three-course extravaganza, head to the two-for-one chain restaurant instead and feel smug in the knowledge that you have extra cash in your account ready to pay those bills.
Larger Expenses That Are Few and Far Between Need Breaking Down
You should never need to rely on credit ever again. While credit isn’t necessarily a bad thing, you need to be able to manage it effectively and have the readies to pay off the capital at the end of every month. Consider how you will budget for these bigger, and often more sudden, costly eventualities. If your boiler breaks down in the cold depths of winter, you don’t want to be whipping out the plastic friend. Instead, you want to have a little nest egg ready for such pitfalls.
Make up your own monthly bills that you pay into your savings account. If you know that you car may need new tires this year, put some money away every month to pay for them. If you know that the windows in your home may need reglazing, don’t wait until the draft blows into your living room, and put money away every month to get them replaced later on in the year. Doing this means that you will have the stash of cash ready to pay for your larger expenses. Looking ahead can give you the gift of foresight. This can be applied to many areas of your life, not just your finances!
Be Flexible in Your Budgeting Approach
You won’t get it right all of the time, so don’t beat yourself up about it. Even following rule one and two to the letter won’t account for the possible swathe of random home and car problems that may befall you all at the same time. It’s bad luck, but it may require you to overspend. If this happen, stay calm. Don’t reach for the credit card to then repay the bare minimum amount of interest back every month. Instead, be flexible and move your money around a little. If you were planning a mammoth around-the-world trip, consider a smaller multi-stop tour instead to facilitate payment for the repairs for your set of wheels.
Categorizing your cash means that you can move money around and be flexible. Being rigid means that you will become bored with your budgeting plans and won’t have the mojo to continue to financial freedom.
Spend the Old Money, not the New
It may sound weird, but the budgeting software that Jesse and Julie have created places a lot of emphasis on aging your cash. Basically, you need to use last month’s pay on this month’s expenses. Spending money that is a month old means that you become more mindful of your spending, creating a better relationship between you and your dollars. This simple life hack can empower you to utilize the app to budget effectively.
In the first two months of using the You Need A Budget budgeting software and apps, people save an average of $600. This isn’t extra money that they are suddenly earning — this is just the simple application of four integral rules to the process. Sounds amazing, huh?
Why YNAB?
The fine people at You Need A Budget haven’t simply made an app and created budgeting software only to give you access to it and then leave you to your own devices. The You Need A Budget ethos is so much more than this. Jesse and Julie want to impart their knowledge onto others. This is a learning process and they want to be with you ever step of the way. Head online and they have a dedicated help center to guide people through the budgeting process.
They have hundreds of videos detailing the intricacies of budgeting as well as explanations of the importance of the four rules. You can even watch Jesse try to explain how he encourages his kids to budget. If you have a question or query, chances are that these videos will have the answer covered. You could even listen to one of the many podcasts discussing all aspects of budgeting in a friendly and fun way.
The team at YNAB has even set up free twenty-minute workshops to empower you to take your budgeting further. Jesse and Julie haven’t just set up spreadsheet template budgets for you to fill in and fail at. The YNAB budgeting software is all about fostering an ethos of community support, help, guidance, and knowledge transfer. This supportive atmosphere should enable you to move forward in your financial journey. Read their blog, read their guides, and ask for support when you need it. The YNAB team is there for you.
Doing Good in the World
The team at YNAB is eager to help everyone in society to tackle their financial demons and overcome them. For those people underrepresented, marginalized and stuck, this can be difficult. YNAB are dedicated to implement their YNAB for Good initiative to teach financial stability and budgeting methods to those communities who need it most. This isn’t a gimmick and they don’t scream their altruism from the rooftops. They are simply trying to give back and do their bit.
If you are a certified non-profit, you can deliver subscriptions to those that you serve for the YNAB program for free. Demonstrate to the team at YNAB that you have a program dedicated to financial literacy and the You Need A Budget team will be eager to get involved. Their apps, free workshops, budgeting software, and supportive community will be available for free for those communities that are underrepresented.
It’s easy to make an application online and the process isn’t taxing or labor-intensive. Becoming a partner in the YNAB for Good program is worthwhile for everyone involved. The charitable donation of their budgeting software enables everyone to access budgeting software. The team at YNAB know the importance of financial freedom to social mobility, community relations, and education.
The fine people at YNAB have also understood the need for positive well-being within the workplace. Personal finance doesn’t begin and end at home. Instead, You Need A Budget software can be accessed by your employees if you run a company or business. Their wellness program is a great way to empower your workforce to take control of their own finances. Doing this will ease their economic stresses. No longer will they have to live paycheck to paycheck and they won’t have to rely on credit. By facilitating their financial freedom, you will end up with a more productive staff team that is more content at work. By showing them that they are valued, you can inspire them to care about the company they work for. This is a win-win for everyone involved.
Doing It for the Kids
Jesse and Julie began their You Need A Budget venture when they were young and newly married. They understand the perils of college all too well. It’s easy for a college student to fritter away their part-time earnings on partying and nights out, only to find that they have no money left for school books, rent, or food. This can lead to an early descent into debt before full-blown adulthood is reached. Luckily, YNAB budgeting software is totally free for college students. Jesse and Julie respect that college kids don’t have the cash to spend on luxuries, so how could they afford the YNAB budgeting software? They can’t, so it’s accessible to them for nothing. That’s right. Zip. Nada. Zero.
While college kids will major in the arts, history, languages or medicine, they might not know anything about finances. This is where YNAB steps in. If your little darling is heading to college, get them to claim their free year of YNAB access before they hotfoot it into further education. They have access to the same things as a paying subscriber would. If they want to catch up on a vlog, they can. If they want to complete a twenty-minute workshop, they can go for it. And if they want to join the YNAB community, they can get chatting to other like-minded college students who are using the budgeting software for free.
That’s a Lot of Good Stuff…
…but that’s not everything. By subscribing to the You Need A Budget software, you aren’t just receiving an app. Yes, it might look pretty, be all singing and all dancing, and be more intuitive than any other app known to humankind, but the app is only half the armory in tackling budgeting. To budget effectively you need to hone the method that you are following and understand the reasons for its inception at a deeper level. YNAB offer excellent courses and lessons to truly educate the people that have subscribed to their way of thinking. This is lifelong learning and empowerment at its best.
If you are eager to learn how to budget and you want to control your own financial destiny, consider heading onto the YNAB site to explore everything that they have to offer. The resources are vast and the knowledge is there for the learning. People across the globe are falling in love with You Need A Budget and it’s easy to see why.