When I started college I set up my first budget in a simple spreadsheet. It only took a couple of months for me to realize my method would not work. Changing formulas around was eating up way to much of my time. I tried a couple different templates but nothing was quite right even after my tweaking.
Next I tried Mint.com which worked better but still had some flaws. Mint expected me to put in a number for my monthly income and then budget less than that to be spent each month. This might work fine for people with very regular income and expenses but for a college student it just meant constant red bars everywhere. Also the budget tool was chunky and inflexible. I used it anyway for several months, but the umpteenth time it failed to sync to my bank account for over a week I went looking for something new.
What I found was YNAB 3. At the time they offered a seven day trial (they have extended that to 34 days now). I only needed two days to know that this was what I was looking for. My favorite feature is that YNAB let me budget the money I had in my account instead of the money I expected to earn in the current month. It also let my create, delete, and move categories and subcategories. Being able to track cash and enter transactions in immediately instead of waited on the bank to process them was also helpful.
I did not think budget software could get any better until YNAB 4 was released. It has a pretty blue interface, added reports, and automatic syncing with the smart phone app. One of my favorite features of the new version is the account reconciliation screen. It is a really simple way to check your YNAB register against your account statement.
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| Just look at that pretty blue interface |
