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My initial impression is that it is just a budget planning tool, with little else of value for me.
I went through the process of duplicating my budget. Pretty simple. reminded me of Mint.com. However, things got messy when I noticed the Baby steps menu on the left. When I clicked on it, it showed all the Baby steps and where you are at in relation to them. I realized there was no place to plug in my savings, debt, etc. I finally did figure out that when you click on the budget category, to the right is a box where you fill in what you have. Then I started entering transactions and realized there is no bank balance shown, just the total you have to budget and what is left to budget.
So here are my thoughts.
Pros
1. Very simple and easy to use, for the most part.
2. Setting up a budget is quick.
3. Nice to see where you are at if you are following the baby steps.
Cons
1. No bank balance shown to know where you stand at any given point.
2. No reconciling (what's the point of marking transactions cleared?)
3. All you can do is forecast, which will get you in trouble unless you are no longer month to month. All you see is how much on a monthly basis you have. This is why I prefer YNAB over Mint also.
4. To allocate funds based on each check (because most people are check-to-check and get paid weekly/bi-weekly) you have to play with the budget and make a duplicate of everything that is applied according to each check. For instance, You have 500$ a month in food, but it's 250$ per check. You need FOOD1 and FOOD2. Otherwise, you will not be sure how much you really have. I did this with mint, and it quickly got very convoluted. Not so simple to keep up with anymore. I spent a lot of time in MInt changing the auto category because Walmart was on food week 1 and needed to be on food week 2 this time. BLah..stupid.
5. Debt isn't being figured in a way that actually helps. Their method is to just enter a total. Marking a payment doesn't reduce the total. You have to manually enter that each month I guess. On the Baby steps page it tells you to use a debt snowball calculator. Why not just include that with a payoff date? I mean, I find several online. They are very simple. All you need is the interest rate (people need to be aware of those anyway if they are not).
6. Because there is no allocation process to know what goes where per check, you still have to use something on the side to break down each check. I use a spreadsheet. I think this is one of the hardest things to do when you start budgeitng. It's one thing to figure up totals for the month, it's another to make it all work per check. This is only an issue if you have a very low cash flow.
For budgeting to work you need a plan, and a way to keep track of the money you have on hand in accordance to the plan. If you are missing either one of those you are not budgeting properly. YNAB is missing a way to plan. Their trick is to put a total beside the name of a category. So for food, it would be FOOD 500$. That sounds like a cop out. You need a written budget to go along with it. So for me, EVerydollar does this better to show the total you have figured up for the month. YNAB is avidly against forecasting, which is why they have nothing for planning either. However, YNAB actually tracks transactions and the money you have better so you can't overspend so easily by thinking you have plenty left in a category, but you don't have the cash to reflect it. You can also reconcile. If you have multiple people using an account (like I do with my wife) this is your saving grace to make sure you have a handle on things. Very often my wife, or sometimes even I forget to mark a transaction. If you don't' reconcile you may never catch it. Of course, this doesn't matter if you don't stick to a strick budget.
Anyway, thats my thoughts after using the software for about 30 min. haha
I went through the process of duplicating my budget. Pretty simple. reminded me of Mint.com. However, things got messy when I noticed the Baby steps menu on the left. When I clicked on it, it showed all the Baby steps and where you are at in relation to them. I realized there was no place to plug in my savings, debt, etc. I finally did figure out that when you click on the budget category, to the right is a box where you fill in what you have. Then I started entering transactions and realized there is no bank balance shown, just the total you have to budget and what is left to budget.
So here are my thoughts.
Pros
1. Very simple and easy to use, for the most part.
2. Setting up a budget is quick.
3. Nice to see where you are at if you are following the baby steps.
Cons
1. No bank balance shown to know where you stand at any given point.
2. No reconciling (what's the point of marking transactions cleared?)
3. All you can do is forecast, which will get you in trouble unless you are no longer month to month. All you see is how much on a monthly basis you have. This is why I prefer YNAB over Mint also.
4. To allocate funds based on each check (because most people are check-to-check and get paid weekly/bi-weekly) you have to play with the budget and make a duplicate of everything that is applied according to each check. For instance, You have 500$ a month in food, but it's 250$ per check. You need FOOD1 and FOOD2. Otherwise, you will not be sure how much you really have. I did this with mint, and it quickly got very convoluted. Not so simple to keep up with anymore. I spent a lot of time in MInt changing the auto category because Walmart was on food week 1 and needed to be on food week 2 this time. BLah..stupid.
5. Debt isn't being figured in a way that actually helps. Their method is to just enter a total. Marking a payment doesn't reduce the total. You have to manually enter that each month I guess. On the Baby steps page it tells you to use a debt snowball calculator. Why not just include that with a payoff date? I mean, I find several online. They are very simple. All you need is the interest rate (people need to be aware of those anyway if they are not).
6. Because there is no allocation process to know what goes where per check, you still have to use something on the side to break down each check. I use a spreadsheet. I think this is one of the hardest things to do when you start budgeitng. It's one thing to figure up totals for the month, it's another to make it all work per check. This is only an issue if you have a very low cash flow.
For budgeting to work you need a plan, and a way to keep track of the money you have on hand in accordance to the plan. If you are missing either one of those you are not budgeting properly. YNAB is missing a way to plan. Their trick is to put a total beside the name of a category. So for food, it would be FOOD 500$. That sounds like a cop out. You need a written budget to go along with it. So for me, EVerydollar does this better to show the total you have figured up for the month. YNAB is avidly against forecasting, which is why they have nothing for planning either. However, YNAB actually tracks transactions and the money you have better so you can't overspend so easily by thinking you have plenty left in a category, but you don't have the cash to reflect it. You can also reconcile. If you have multiple people using an account (like I do with my wife) this is your saving grace to make sure you have a handle on things. Very often my wife, or sometimes even I forget to mark a transaction. If you don't' reconcile you may never catch it. Of course, this doesn't matter if you don't stick to a strick budget.
Anyway, thats my thoughts after using the software for about 30 min. haha
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