Now, if you don’t know what budgeting is, it is basically tracking what money you have available and what money you have spent. This can be a pretty daunting task that doesn’t come without its challenges. An app like YNAB (You Need a Budget) can help you out with this seemingly daunting task.
YNAB is a very useful budgeting app! It lets you set up different banking accounts within the app and link them to your checking or savings accounts, so that the real numbers will show up in the app. Even with an unlinked account, you can easily add or remove money (for example, cash). On the budgeting side of things, you can create groups (saving, spending, monthly expenses, giving, etc.) and categories within that group (groceries, gas, electronics, dining, etc.). Every transaction you put into the app is assigned a category, so that you know how much you have spent from that category each month. Take groceries for example: let’s say you budget $1000 (for simple numbers) for groceries for the month of February. On February 8th, you take a trip to Costco and spend $200 on groceries. You will then make a transaction in YNAB, setting the payee as Costco and the category as groceries. Since you budgeted $1000, YNAB will now show that you have $800 left in the category. If you overspend for the month, it will make you aware of this as well. All of this will help you stay accountable and on budget. YNAB also displays stats like your Net Worth and Age of Money (how long you go from getting money to spending it). All of this is easy to see in a nice layout in the app! Finally, you can share a budget with your family, so that everyone can see the budget.
I have been using YNAB for years now, and I believe that it is one of the best budgeting apps out there. The month of February is coming up in just a few days, so now would be the perfect time to download YNAB and set it up. You can start a free trial before paying for a subscription (college students can get it all for free). That way, you can start using YNAB to budget for the month of February and beyond! You can go to the website to learn more, or click here if you would like to download the app to see for yourself!