It wasn’t until I encountered YNAB’s month-ahead budgeting system that I discovered a different way of looking at my crazy variable income. (Because, clearly, that’s the most important bill of all.) I always assumed that freelancers just spent money as it came in, and that all of us worried about whether the next PayPal transfer would hit the checking account in time to pay the Internet bill. Not living paycheck to paycheck is always a good thing, especially when you’re not sure when your next freelancing check is coming in, or how much it’s going to be. And there’s something about the mental and physical effort of that that has made me more conscious of our spending. With YNAB, I know I have to stay on top of entering transactions. With Mint, I could sign off for days at a time, only to come back and find that we’d blown one budget category by $50. (You can also upload your transactions from your bank account, but I haven’t done that yet.) Even though this takes more time, it builds in more accountability, which I like. Now, I have to enter my transactions manually. One thing I loved about Mint was that it automatically synced with all my accounts. They’re on the budget already, and I don’t need to think about them again. I also know that my husband is getting a third paycheck in January. For instance, I know we have a couple of big expenses coming up that we need to cover. With YNAB, I can plan ahead as much as I want. You’ve got to be a few hours into the first day of the month for Mint to reset to that month. That messed up the whole system for several hours.
So I started putting in our budget just after midnight. Once, I was overly excited about the planning of the month (yeah, I’m a nerd). With Mint, I’d have to wait until the 1st of the month to plan our budget for that month. I think that, given the chance, YNAB will beat Mint every time. With that said, in the last few weeks, I’ve become more and more of a fan of YNAB. I appreciate its slick graphical interface and that it automatically syncs with my accounts. You can read the details here in our Personal Capital review.Īfter months of debating whether to pay $60 for budgeting software, I finally took the plunge and bought You Need a Budget (YNAB). Second, Personal Capital has launched a free financial dashboard that does what YNAB does, plus a whole lot more. The product now requires a monthly subscription, which we don’t like.
Update: Since publishing this Mint vs YNAB comparison, two significant events have occurred. This content has not been provided by, reviewed, approved or endorsed by any advertiser, unless otherwise noted below.
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