|
I'm moving into my own place to start grad school in a week, and I've created a provisional budget for myself, but as I've never done it before, I'm hoping you guys could take a look at it and tell me if I've hosed up anywhere. Also, I'm going to be living off of an old fund my parents set up for me when I was born worth 20,741 plus my own savings of 7,000, and I really want to make sure that I'm maximizing the usage and longevity of my parents' awesomeness. I'm planning to take out loans for my second year as a Master's student, but the less I borrow, I figure the better. I'm on my mother's health insurance until I'm twenty-six, so my health care is taken care of. So, income : 27,741 Monthly Expenses: Rent - 769 Utilities - 85 (cost of water is added up between the whole apartment complex and then divided among all of us) Food - 250 Gas - 60 Home Supplies - 20 School per semester, of which there are three per year - 3290.67 How much money can I feasibly put aside for fun per month, and how much should I put into savings? I'm hoping to get a part-time job during the day, since my classes are all at night, but I'm not sure yet what that will be or how much money I can expect to earn. Thanks for your help!
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2014 00:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 09:08 |
|
|
Well, your school poo poo comes out to $823 a month accounting for all three semesters, so you're looking at about two grand a month there total. And you don't include any budget items for poo poo like... car maintenance, new clothes, gifts for friends and family, all of that poo poo that people call "one time expenses" and don't plan for. So, on that budget IF it is adequate and IF you manage to only spend that much a month, with your current funds you can last a little under 14 months without any additional income before you are flat broke. The more you add the shorter that time gets. There's not really much else we can say, if it's just you eating that food budget you can probably reduce it a bit if you never eat out I guess, because eating out gets real expensive real fast and cooking is significantly cheaper What I would do if I were in your situation is buy YNAB (because I am a shameless shill for it and it is on sale for $15 dollars until tomorrow on Steam) put in all your accounts, allocate all that money you have right now into a Savings category and then subtract from that category a set amount every month to live off of. Go ahead and budget out the entire year if you want and watch how fast your money drops. Then remember this is only an idealized goal and reality will probably not be as nice as you want it to be. Then start tracking your expenses religiously and be absolutely fanatically committed to capping your monthly expenses and never pulling extra out of your savings for stupid bullshit come hell or high water. Because having debt blows. I don't recommend it. If I got a job during all that I would just take less out of my savings each month to stretch it out as far as it could go. 100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jan 3, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2014 01:40
|
|
|
Well, I do want to take a little bit of money out to have fun with, eat out, etc., since I don't want to be a hermit. I was thinking 125, but perhaps that's a little high. I forgot to mention that my mother, being annoyingly stubborn, continues to give me 225 dollars every month, and though I've tried to get her to tell me when she plans to stop, so far it's like pulling teeth. I know I should be grateful, and I am, but I feel guilty taking money from her she could be using for her and my father's retirement. So I suppose that's extra money for however long she continues to do that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2014 02:29
|
|
|
Pinball posted:I forgot to mention that my mother, being annoyingly stubborn, continues to give me 225 dollars every month...but I feel guilty taking money from her she could be using for her and my father's retirement. Making sure you have their back when they've transitioned from "career" to "retirement" is pretty much the best possible way to show how much you appreciate everything they've done for you over the years.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2014 18:10
|
|
|
100 HOGS AGREE posted:What I would do if I were in your situation is buy YNAB (because I am a shameless shill for it and it is on sale for $15 dollars until tomorrow on Steam) put in all your accounts, allocate all that money you have right now into a Savings category and then subtract from that category a set amount every month to live off of. Go ahead and budget out the entire year if you want and watch how fast your money drops. Fully agree. I was in a similar situation, where I had a lump sum and a part-time job. I budgeted out for months in advance. This let me know exactly when the money was going to run out, and showed me how much my spending was affecting this. It was also nice to see the red line move away from me, rather than me catching up to it. I honestly can't think of an easier way to accomplish this. The software is very flexible and gives you exactly the information you want. There's no stress in wondering how long you can last, or how much you can afford to spend. It's all right there in front of you.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2014 19:29
|
|
|
Kenny Rogers posted:Accept it gracefully, and remember to include in your future budget a payment from you to them for their retirement once you've transitioned from "school" to "career". That's a great idea! I'll have to think about how much I can feasibly give them. Honestly, no amount is too much (they paid for expensive private school for six years after I had terrible emotional problems, paid for my undergrad, are paying for a year of grad school), but I'm going to be a special ed teacher, and they don't make huge salaries. I wonder if ten thousand would be enough. I could probably save that much over five to ten years. The problem would be to get them to take it. I'm looking into YNAB, too. Is it better than Mint? I already have Mint, but if YNAB is truly that much better, I might spend the money for a copy.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2014 00:42
|
|
|
Pinball posted:I'm looking into YNAB, too. Is it better than Mint? I already have Mint, but if YNAB is truly that much better, I might spend the money for a copy. I think it's still only $15 on Steam (may have expired though), so it's a wise buy even if you end up not liking it much (though you probably will).
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2014 00:48
|
|
|
YNAB is not like Mint. Mint is a financial tracker with budgeting tools tacked on. YNAB is a planning tool. Use both, since they're both good tools for the jobs they do.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2014 01:06
|
|
|
I just abandoned Mint completely. I had pretty much stopped using it a month after I started using YNAB and since I track everything manually anyway my important balances (checking, credit card) are always up to date and all I really have to do is log in to a couple websites at the end of the month and add some reconciliation transactions for accrued interest on my loans and poo poo. By the way, what is Quicken meant to be used for? I've never even looked at it because all my needs are currently met and my finances are not complicated.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2014 02:07
|
|
|
I use Mint and YNAB together. The YNAB mobile app doesn't really interest me because I know I'd be unreliable about entering my purchases. So once a week I go into Mint which has all of my purchases tracked and recorded, and enter them into YNAB. Also helpful for reconciling balances since I can check all my accounts at once.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2014 02:19
|
|
|
100 HOGS AGREE posted:By the way, what is Quicken meant to be used for? I've never even looked at it because all my needs are currently met and my finances are not complicated.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2014 21:40
|
|
|
I started using YNAB about 1/3 of the way into December and it was my first time setting up a budget. I've tried looking in the program and online, but haven't been able to find anything on this -- do you have to re-enter monthly bills in the budget section each month? How can I set it to carry that amount over each month? For example, having my budgeted amount for rent carry over. Or is this me using YNAB/budgeting incorrectly?
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2014 23:28
|
|
|
Dango Bango posted:I started using YNAB about 1/3 of the way into December and it was my first time setting up a budget. I've tried looking in the program and online, but haven't been able to find anything on this -- do you have to re-enter monthly bills in the budget section each month? How can I set it to carry that amount over each month? For example, having my budgeted amount for rent carry over. I don't have a computer handy but there's a little drop down button or something on each line item in the budget column that gives you auto-entry options like average of last three months, balance to zero, last month's output/budget and so on. You can also use the lightning bolt button in the "available to budget" box for batch filling the whole month's lines.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2014 23:42
|
|
|
In addition, you can also set up scheduled, recurring transactions on the account registers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2014 00:48
|
|
|
Dango Bango posted:I started using YNAB about 1/3 of the way into December and it was my first time setting up a budget. I've tried looking in the program and online, but haven't been able to find anything on this -- do you have to re-enter monthly bills in the budget section each month? How can I set it to carry that amount over each month? For example, having my budgeted amount for rent carry over. Here's how I have it set up. In my 'main' bank account screen, I have all my fixed monthly bills set up using the Scheduled Transactions feature:  ...and in the Budget screen, it'll allow you to automatically budget for what you just scheduled. You can also use the amount that was budgeted the previous month:  It won't automatically set up a budget for you, but it's a two-second job to carry over last month's budget values:  I grabbed YNAB during the Steam sale, and consider me a convert. It does what my previous spreadsheet method didn't: rather than just tracking where and when I'm spending money, it's about taking any money left over after paying bills and using it to budget for the following month. Do this for long enough, and then you hopefully end up being able to pay bills with the money you've saved up until now - then any income again gets handed over to next month. Holy poo poo, you're no longer living payday to payday 
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2014 13:34
|
|
so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.
|
Thanks for the help and advice guys! That lightning bolt is tough to see if you aren't looking for it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2014 18:15
|
|
|
Dango Bango posted:Thanks for the help and advice guys! That lightning bolt is tough to see if you aren't looking for it. I'm pretty sure they go over it in a couple of webinars, which I found really helpful especially for credit card management. You should check one out if you have an hour to spare.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2014 18:31
|
|
|
Official Bizness posted:After buying YNAB back in June, I deleted the old budget excel sheet I got here in the forums. A few friends of mine are interested in getting their stuff under control, but I can't find that sheet in this sub-forum for the life of me. It was made in 2011, I think? Maybe 2012? Is there a possible lead someone could give me?
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2014 18:46
|
|
|
Question about YNAB and budgeting in general: I'm a contractor, and I submit my invoices twice a month, with payment coming 6 weeks after payment (like clockwork). My monthly income averages out to $12,500, but in actuality ranges anywhere from $10,000 to $14,000 in any given month. My expenses are pretty stable--my income greatly outpaces my spending (otherwise I would have bigger problems). Anything I don't spend just goes into various savings funds (quarterly tax payments, retirement, other investments, etc.), but that amount ranges for the reasons above. I'm fine with the excess just going into a specific savings fund every month, but I'd kind of like to make budget/savings projections a few months in advance. How do I account for this in my budget on YNAB? Do I just let the negative "Overbudgeted" bit sit near $12,500 for months that are more than 6-weeks out, or is there a more elegant way of handling this?
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2014 05:52
|
|
|
Cranbe posted:Question about YNAB and budgeting in general: I'm a contractor, and I submit my invoices twice a month, with payment coming 6 weeks after payment (like clockwork). My monthly income averages out to $12,500, but in actuality ranges anywhere from $10,000 to $14,000 in any given month. Honestly, YNAB isn't really designed for that kind of forecasting. It's explicitly budgeting with money that you actually have in hand. A much better solution would be a simple google drive spreadsheet for your forecasting.
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2014 13:28
|
|
|
Cranbe posted:... contractor... invoices twice a month, with payment coming 6 weeks after payment (like clockwork). My monthly income averages out to $12,500, but in actuality ranges anywhere from $10,000 to $14,000 in any given month. This is definitely in need of something a bit more able to handle double entry accounting than YNAB, but if you really find you have no option but to continue using it, you might arrange to "pay yourself a monthly 'paycheck'" taken from your contract income. As YNAB seems better at expense budgeting, determine your expected monthly expenses, then pay yourself monthly out of your savings account to do your YNAB thing. If that keeps you honest with regards to paying the rent, electricity, and gasoline, then so be it. Meanwhile, get started with a spreadsheet or ledger. You'll want to know the order of incoming invoice payments so you can predict how much cash you'll have at any given time. As your true income greatly outpaces the amount you'll be showing to YNAB, just keep a separate column in your ledger for your living funds. Handle all the larger, extra, or unexpected incidentals on your ledger but keep them off the YNAB radar. Based on values you've indicated, I'd expect you'll want your spreadsheet to show your various targets. You have an amount you must make during the year to cover your living expenses ("paychecks to yourself"). You must have funds for taxes, as mentioned. You probably have larger savings goals or capital expenses planned that need to be budgeted in the longer term. Handle all these things in your ledger, where you can reduce retirement savings one month/quarter to otherwise have enough to cover living expenses, and so forth.
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2014 15:15
|
|
|
tuyop posted:Honestly, YNAB isn't really designed for that kind of forecasting. It's explicitly budgeting with money that you actually have in hand. A much better solution would be a simple google drive spreadsheet for your forecasting. PhantomOfTheCopier posted:This is definitely in need of something a bit more able to handle double entry accounting than YNAB, but if you really find you have no option but to continue using it, you might arrange to "pay yourself a monthly 'paycheck'" taken from your contract income. As YNAB seems better at expense budgeting, determine your expected monthly expenses, then pay yourself monthly out of your savings account to do your YNAB thing. If that keeps you honest with regards to paying the rent, electricity, and gasoline, then so be it. Thanks for the advice. I do already have a spreadsheet ledger set up for my business, with exact income, expenses, etc. So for YNAB, I sort of compromised by having only two months roughly budgeted in advance, allowing that second month to be over-budgeted until I input my exact income (i.e. once I've submitted my billing). I know that to meet my medium- and long-term savings goals, I need to set aside $X,000 every month, and I can fit my other expenses and discretionary spending around that, so I don't necessarily need to project my budget out beyond that time frame anyway. I think rough budgeting two months in advance will work for my situation because (A) I already know exactly how much money I will receive in the next month; and (B) if I tell myself I need to receive $XX,000 as income two months from now, I know I'll need to bill Y-number of days this month, so I can plan to put in the extra time as needed. The other thing I did was that I've set up a slush fund / temp savings line item where I plan to dump my excess money in a given month (beyond spending and my exact savings goals), which should hold over the "leaner" months. Basically, it should act as my buffer to effectively average out my income stream, but it's not intended as a long-term savings fund.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2014 21:42
|
|
|
100 HOGS AGREE posted:By the way, what is Quicken meant to be used for? I've never even looked at it because all my needs are currently met and my finances are not complicated. Quicken is a more traditional way to look at your finances, just transaction registers and a bunch of reports that may or may not be helpful to you. I use quicken, and I like it (in theory) because it's the mindset I'm used to and you can do automatic transaction downloads from your bank. I used to do things by hand and I would often miss something and spend an hour going through my bank statements and quicken to find out what's missing. That said, quicken pretty much sucks. It's programmed horribly, it's slow and laggy and if it's doing something in the background it will often force it's way to be the application in focus all the while cycling the mouse between a hourglass and the cursor and redrawing the title menu 20 times a second. It's really a piece of poo poo, my guess is they've had the same programmers for 20 years and they just keep on keepin' on when it really could use a complete rewrite with modern programming languages. YNAB intrigues me but some of the tomfoolery you have to do with inflows and outflows and stuff confuses me, but over time I've developed similar ways of doing things that are the same "Rule 4" is basically our Buffer in our checking account, and we've been doing "Rule 2" for a while. I downloaded YNAB today to show to the wife to see if it's something she'd be interested in being more involved with. We recently bought Quicken '14 because they have a mobile app now that you can sync with your phone so you can see your spending, enter transactions there, see our budget, etc. No surprise that I can't get my client version to mobile sync now. While I'm not excited about entering transactions manually, I do really like the granular level of what dollar is doing what (as opposed to Hey there's a bunch of money in checking, we're rich!) along with rolling over available funds and whatnot (which I do think quicken can do as well in the budget tool). It would be nice to get out of the mindset of looking at the numbers in our checking account vs. "Well we only have $180 in our clothing bucket right now".
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2014 20:11
|
|
|
dreesemonkey posted:YNAB intrigues me but some of the tomfoolery you have to do with inflows and outflows and stuff confuses me, but over time I've developed similar ways of doing things that are the same "Rule 4" is basically our Buffer in our checking account, and we've been doing "Rule 2" for a while. We've been using YNAB for almost a year now, and the oddities with inflow/outflow are pretty minimal. The system is pretty good at tracking obvious cash balance transfer between physical accounts. You can also set up recurring transactions for most of your monthly payments which is a big help. After you've used it for a little bit, if you put in the early work to save some of the stores as common names like Target, Wal-Mart, Speedway, McDonalds, etc it will remember those transactions when you import your finances so it is just a lot of approving transactions instead of manually doing everything. We try to update it once a week and enter stuff manually if we think about it, but once a week keeps us pretty on track with no going over.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 14:47
|
|
|
dreesemonkey posted:Quicken is a more traditional way to look at your finances, just transaction registers and a bunch of reports that may or may not be helpful to you.... I just find it fundamentally amusing that people think they need to buy a specific piece of software to "discover" the notion that a single chunk of money, as recorded on a piece of paper/spreadsheet/X, can be allocated to a number of purposes. It's getting to the point where I'm going to have to ask if you get credits selling the software to other people for a slightly higher price, and they in turn the same thing, and on up the pyramid.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 15:14
|
|
|
PhantomOfTheCopier posted:My question is why you are not presently doing this? A quick search suggests several possible ways to fake out the system to create sub-accounts, and it seems newer versions support "Savings Goals" that may help in this direction. I suspect you won't find the muddling and tomfoolery to be any bit reduced with YNAB; it just occurs at a different part of the budgeting/tracking workflow. I think the developers just stumbled upon the sweet spot of digitizing the envelope system while clarifying the workflow/goals of sound personal finances like "save for a rainy day", "don't live paycheque to paycheque", while minimizing the confusing side of forecasting and the decision paralysis of some tracking tools like Mint (gah, why can't I stop spending $640 on booze and overdrafting my account?!?!). And the interesting part is that it seems much more straighforward to say "Get YNAB" and people will work out all the practices themselves, rather than "Get google drive, do XYZ, maintain your spreadsheet like this..." and so on.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 15:31
|
|
|
tuyop posted:I think the developers just stumbled upon the sweet spot of digitizing the envelope system while clarifying the workflow/goals of sound personal finances like "save for a rainy day", "don't live paycheque to paycheque", while minimizing the confusing side of forecasting and the decision paralysis of some tracking tools like Mint (gah, why can't I stop spending $640 on booze and overdrafting my account?!?!). Pretty much this. I'm not good with spreadsheets, so I didn't even try to play with the one I got from pillow pants. Ynab was a loving revelation to me. I wish I got credit from them, I shill for them pretty hard to my friends. I doesn't even make sense what a difference it has made for me.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 15:39
|
|
|
Demon_Corsair posted:Pretty much this. I'm not good with spreadsheets, so I didn't even try to play with the one I got from pillow pants. Ynab was a loving revelation to me. I used to do the spreadsheet and hated it, YNAB was just a cleaner, more efficient route for me and I don't have to worry about accidently deleting a cell or screwing up a formula. I'm also a pretty big advocate for their system.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 15:44
|
|
|
We get it, POTC. You hate YNAB, and you have disdain for people who don't think the way you do. As with tuyop, it helped me understand the envelope system before I even knew what that was. And it got me to stop looking at the bank balance far better than spreadsheets ever did, although even that took up to a year of use before that switch happened. I also wonder why I was so stupid and didn't have that lightbulb moment years or decades sooner, but there you have it. Being raised and living in a culture of debt, I just never had any cash beyond the current paycheck, and credit cards were seen as what I could afford as a monthly payment. That can take quite a while to un-do in your brain, and YNAB is very good and user-friendly with leading you there. The more you trash YNAB, the more people will defend it. In a way, you are their biggest advocate. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 17:16
|
|
|
Old Fart posted:We get it, POTC. You hate YNAB, and you have disdain for people who don't think the way you do. The best thing I've done for my little brother is get him started budgeting right out of college. I really wish I had an older brother to kick my rear end when I was coming out of school. I'd definitely be in a different position financially.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 18:49
|
|
|
IMO don't setup fake sub accounts in Quicken. It causes reconciliation hell, and doesn't change your mindset to spend to balance vs budget.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 00:24
|
|
|
Old Fart posted:We get it, POTC. You hate YNAB, and you have disdain for people who don't think the way you do. Since you brought it up, I have severe concerns with recommending that software to anyone on the grounds that I believe it will actually cause harm in some cases because it discourages prudent planning and encourages shuffling around money on a whim. That seems to be part of their "philosophy", and since a user is so tied to their paradigm to even attempt beginning, as demonstrated by the frequent, basic questions here and on their own fora, it seems perhaps best to just not even wait for the next sale. Instead, perhaps people should consider mentally preparing some plans instead of imagining that some piece of software will create money. Maybe then they'll realize that a little effort on their part was worth more than $15 would have gotten them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 00:41
|
|
|
PhantomOfTheCopier posted:I'm willing to go as far as admitting that I clearly don't "get it". All screenshots of YNAB thus far are... spreadsheets! I consider budgeting to be an exercise in reality, and imagining that I'm somehow a financial wizard because I can suddenly manage to keep money in one place just because I bought a piece of software seems highly disingenuous. People have been surviving and thriving for years with a variety of different tools, and I don't feel that every question in this forum requires an instantaneous, blanket reply... Perhaps if we met the person at their current needs, we'd be more likely to be helpful. Jeez, dude, people might be more interested in what you say if it weren't dripping in condescension.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 00:59
|
|
|
PhantomOfTheCopier posted:I'm willing to go as far as admitting that I clearly don't "get it". YNAB is approachable and accessible the way custom spreadsheets (and the other tools you're comfortable with) are generally *not*. There is a ton of evidence that people in this thread (myself included) who tried it your (favorite) way, and failed, and failed, and failed, and failed, and eventually gave up and finally just went back to spending to the bank account. Consider YNAB to be the World of Warcraft for Budgeting Software. Sure, there are "better" versions of both, but YNAB and WoW remain exceptionally accessible to people with no experience, or who had terrible experiences in the past. They both ensure a low barrier to entry and a shallow learning curve. They both have new users who ask silly questions like "How do I account for..." or "How I mine fish?", and they both have decent communities that are, generally speaking, helpful and welcoming to new users. But (to extend the metaphor) you can't understand why *anyone* would *ever* play WoW, when they could come play EvE instead. Kenny Rogers fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Jan 18, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 01:05
|
|
|
Cranbe posted:Jeez, dude, people might be more interested in what you say if it weren't dripping in condescension.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 01:07
|
|
|
PhantomOfTheCopier posted:No offense, but "Click here for the magic $15 solution to your self-control issues!" seems pretty condescending to me. You are mistakenly ascribing generalized self-control issues, when that's not even remotely the actual problem at all.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 01:18
|
|
|
I generally stump for YNAB because I love it and it works really well for me but I think if anyone thinks buying a piece of software will instantly fix their problems with money with little effort on their part then that person is an idiot. I don't get why you're spouting so much vitrol, it's just fuckin software, it works for some people and not for others, and there's no such thing as a magic bullet and it's not pretending to be one. Chill the poo poo out.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 01:28
|
|
|
100 HOGS AGREE posted:I don't get why you're spouting so much vitrol, it's just fuckin software, it works for some people and not for others, and there's no such thing as a magic bullet and it's not pretending to be one. Chill the poo poo out. Kenny Rogers posted:That's the spot where you just don't get it. Myself, I'm somewhat unusually optimistic and hopeful that people have the ability and will-power hidden within them to execute sound financial planning, and I believe they can do it with a piece of paper, a calculator, abacus, ledger, budgeting book, envelopes, or any of a variety of software.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 04:54
|
|
|
Albert Einstein, “On the Method of Theoretical Physics,” the Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford, June 10, 1933 posted:It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience. YNAB isn't any sort of 'magic bullet' (nothing is), but it *is* (for many, many of the people that tout its virtues in this here thread) the simplest possible solution, without oversimplifying the matter. As I mentioned earlier today, it's a software package that comes with an extensive collection of casual, user-friendly tutorial videos that work well for a very broad audience, and an active, large, and supportive user community, who can (and do!) help new users get their feet under them fairly easily, and with a minimum of fuss, which allows the new user to get a gigantic dopamine hit when they 'win' at the task they've undertaken early on in the process. This is important. This early (and comparatively EASY) success leads to the user undertaking further efforts, which leads to more success, which ultimately gets the new user hooked on good financial practices. Isn't that the goal here, anyway? Are we here to Create Actual Working Budgets, or are we here to Have Rational Discourse About Budgeting Methods To Determine Which Is Most Superior? I won't argue that there may be better tools. I won't argue that there are tools you like better. I won't argue that the thread tends to present a "Start here, with this specific thing" mentality for all new posters. There is, however, a drat good reason for that. I will argue that it's unlikely that a person strays into this thread without at least taking a rudimentary stab at SOME kind of budgeting (even if it's Spend To The Bank Account Balance) before arriving here. I would suggest that a significant number of people (but *not* 100%) who stray into this thread have already had *several* failed attempts at budgeting already. Ease of Use is the #1 predictor of success for these folks. They've already tried the "traditional" methods, and failed - often more than once. (I'm very, very much in that category) For large numbers of people, YNAB presents the lowest total combination of barrier to entry + non-steep learning curve + easy recovery from noob mistakes + 'social knowledge base' for questions out of the current crop of methods and tools that are commonly available today. That low threshold for success means that more people will succeed using that method, which translates to a larger number of people posting in this thread who have been successful using YNAB versus other methods. It naturally and logically flows from there that YNAB will be the most widely recommended tool in this thread. Conversely, it's also the most widely recommended tool in this thread because the greatest number of people in this thread are achieving their goals with a minimum of fuss using YNAB. There are a huge number of methods with which to do financial planning. One of them makes it the easiest to succeed in changing your habits. That one gets recommended the most. Because it's the the one that's been most successful in helping people change their habits. It's a self-sustaining circle. Have I come at the reasons why YNAB is so popular (and is recommended so frequently) from a sufficient number of angles that it's clear yet? quote:...I believe it will actually cause harm in some cases because it discourages prudent planning and encourages shuffling around money on a whim¹. In brief: ¹ The YNAB philosophy doesn't encourage 'shuffling around money on a whim' so much as it acknowledges that poo poo Happens In Life and It's Not The End Of The World When It Does. ² You seem really rigid and stereotypical in your characterizations of people, like there's only One True Path³, one set of personal circumstances, or personal preference and little to no room for individuation. Your message is clear, "Just loving Bootstrap yourself, bitch!", with no allowance that people have already tried that in the past, or that perhaps they don't feel like they know enough about the subject to take on, say, a blank spreadsheet approach, and so that's a hugely intimidating hump to get over. Instead, you just pile huge loads of hate and scorn on a method that has worked for a TON of people in this thread, without the acknowledgement that, "hey, it's not for me, but it loving works for a fuckton of people...so there's that..." I don't like this approach, and I suspect neither do a great many other people in this thread. ³ This is VERY different than the broad-but-not-universal recommendation for a product that a great number of people have had proven success with. Kenny Rogers fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Jan 18, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 07:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 09:08 |
|
|
I don't see why it's so hard to see why people prefer YNAB over Excel. It's the convenience of not having to rewrite parts of a goddamn Excel sheet, whenever you're wanting to create new, consolidate, merge or delete categories, payees, accounts or whatever else. Plus the presentation is clearer. Plus, if updates bring new functionality in free updates, I can use them automagically, without jumping through hoops doing copypasta between sheets. If you don't want to pay 15$ for a spreadsheet, more power to you, but I don't want to pay way more than this to get Office.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2014 16:08
|
|
