I think I might agree with your assessment for Oro, but I would say I know a LOT of people who like nYNAB who aren’t in that category. I just LOVE reports and detailed data. My SSO, who is FI, also likes reports and detailed data.
But I barely use nYNAB any differently than I used old YNAB. I don’t connect my main budget to my accounts at all and still do manual entry/reconciling. I barely use goals. I do enjoy I can put emojis in my category titles.
Absolutely. I didn’t mean that only people in debt use it, I think nYNAB works for a large variety of people, but it removes the key features that made YNAB (extra?) useful for those already out of debt.
My main issue is my work typically owes me upwards of thousands of dollars a month in expenses and I couldn’t figure out how to work that in nYNAB without the turn the arrow to the right functionality that YNAB4 has. I pay my credit card in full every month, but it was just really messing with my entire budget with how nYNAB handles “debt”. I’ve seen a few possible workarounds but it was all too fussy for me considering YNAB4 still works perfect for my needs and didn’t cost me anything more than the original purchase. I actually wouldn’t have a big issue paying the subscription because YNAB has absolutely been a key piece of me turning my financial life around.
Jealous of the emoji’s though haha. I am a HUGE data nerd, so I get that, but YNAB4 captures it too (and, ahem, my other spreadsheets 
).
And Emergency Fund is a budget category! You can even hide it! Or make it off budget as @anomalily points out!
It confuses me when people are confused by that, haha. YNAB just works with the way my brain works. No shame if that’s not the case for you!
…“very ‘fuss’ oriented” DEFINITELY describes me. 
If we had signatures on this forum I would add that phrase.
Team Mint here! I definitely have my gripes with it every now and then, but I’ve been very happy with it and haven’t felt an inkling of curiosity to switch to ynab, even when it was getting so much love on The Billfold. I do pair it with my own custom spreadsheet, but that’s focused on tracking savings rates, even though that’s mostly on autopilot now.
I’ve fussed around with it a bit more; I think I’ve decided it’s not worth the money for me, even if I did come to like it more than I currently do.
I’m glad it works for people! But I think it’s just not gonna be my bag.
Well I had no idea I could use emojis in categories so I’m glad you posted this!!!
I get excited any time anyone talks about YNAB so sorry in advance…
YNAB is the first thing I’ve used that I’ve actually been able to use consistently. Over the last 15 years I’ve tried:
Finally @anomalily introduced me to YNAB and I’ve been hooked ever since, going on 4 years now. It’s the first time I’ve found the right balance between automatic data entry and manual tagging, giving me the flexibility of both.
I started with desktop YNAB and made the jump to the online version and it’s been mostly fine. I like that it’s better in sync between my phone and laptop now. The only thing I don’t like is their new rules around credit cards. I see why they do it but it doesn’t apply to me since I never carry a balance.
Sure it’s kinda expensive, but as someone in the software industry I do realize why they’re doing it and I also know what happens to software and the company when they don’t do this.
So pretty much a huge fan here, and it’s literally changed my life, so yeah. That said, I totally believe it’s not for everyone, everyone has a different way of thinking about this that works for them. I’m just glad I found mine!
This is by far my biggest frustration. I don’t understand why it never matches and it drives me batty.
I am a diehard YNAB user, but I do wonder if I would use it if I only knew the new version. The desktop version was the first thing that worked the way my brain worked but looked pretty. The new version is just different enough that I don’t have “fun” with it the way I did before, but the method of budgeting this way totally works for me.
I also agree that subscription models for software make the most sense from the dev side and I like supporting the things that add value to my life. I don’t save more money with YNAB but it definitely helps smooth out the lumpy parts of my spending/budget. I do really like Jesse’s story and philosophy and feel good about supporting his product.
I used to use yodlee moneycenter before they went all user unfriendly. Now I use Mint, but find it annoying for various reasons. At some point I may splurge on Tiller (https://www.tillerhq.com/), because it seems to have most stuff I want and be more oriented toward what I want (spending and net worth tracking, rather than budgeting per se). I met one of the founders at Camp Mustache a couple of years ago and he seems pretty chill.
I don’t like YNAB. I like my custom spreadsheets because I can track and focus on what matters to me.
I’ve been talking with YNAB support about a particular detail about how credit cards are handled, and they just said this:
When your credit card has a positive balance, YNAB treats it like any other cash account—the positive balance is added to your To be Budgeted amount.
I think this explains the weirdness I’ve been seeing where seemingly at random I’ll end up with the wrong amounts budgeted to the credit card payment category and money added to my “to be budgeted” that I don’t know where it came from.
I am still convinced that their implementation of this is wrong and it should not do this at all so I’m going to keep arguing with support about it.
FWIW, I don’t use any of the “YNAB Method” or follow any of their tutorials or anything, I’ve turned YNAB into a tool that lets me track only what matters to me, which is why I like it.
I haven’t used nYNAB because even US$45 is more in AUD. Still on YNAB4. It took me a few months to get the hang of it. The new ynab just didn’t seem to accommodate me at all when they brought it out, according to their marketing; directed at people in debt, doesn’t treat my credit card as simply another account that can have a +ve or -ve balance, and most of all, would ONLY do direct connection to banks, of which they assumed you were in the US. Can I manually import by doing an export from my bank’s website now?
Also @Oro tell me more about how to make excel track my shares value?
Yes please
@LadyDuck and @Smacky Here is how to make google sheets do the shares/value tracking. I’m not sure if it will work in excel or not or how to do that, as I use sheets so it will sync up on all my shit.
You are a hero.
I didn’t realize this for a very long time and ended up scrapping an existing budget and doing a fresh start because I ended up waaaaay off on numbers.
YES. Thank you.
Holy SHIT that’s amazing. I mean, I don’t have any shares? But when I do, totes using that trick
I just realized I can put my credit cards in YNAB as checking accounts and bypass the whole issue while still allowing for automatic downloads of transactions… hmmmmm… there will be a new budget to play around with in my account by the end of the day
I’m enjoying a desktop app (so you can’t use it on chromeOS) called Buckets which seems to use a lot of the same methodology as YNAB but only costs a one-time fee instead of the monthly arrangement.
