That’s not me telling you what to do – promise!
That’s the name of the app I recently started using to track our budget. After my last post on How the High Heeler’s Budget, a lot of people asked for the Excel spreadsheet I created. I guess we’re not alone in our struggles to find that perfect budgeting tool! It worked for us for a long time because I didn’t like anything out there, and I customized it to suit our needs. However, it had its fair share of limitations, with one major issue being it didn’t track roll-overs. What to do when you go over budget or fall under budget? It was also easy to forget about where we were with our budget unless I diligently kept track of it every couple weeks. And let’s be honest here – there were times (many times) when I’d track it too late… the money had been spent, the damage done! There’s a reason why that popular saying, “Out of sight, out of mind!” exists.
Anyway, one of the highlights of my week was a conversation I had over dinner with friends. We had all finished eating, so I pulled out a sheet of paper and started writing down what we spent on dinner so I wouldn’t forget to log it when I went home. They asked what I was doing, laughed when I told them, and said they were doing the exact same thing at that moment! Except I didn’t see them busting out a lame-o paper and pencil like me. The couple I was with was tracking something on their phone. Then they started passionately (and I mean passion!!) talking about an app called YNAB.
These were a few of the factors that swayed me to check it out:
- It tracks roll-overs!
- Once you itemize and categorize something, it remembers it the next time. This was one feature that was lacking in Mint.com – I constantly had to go back and re-categorize what I had done before.
- It doesn’t pull info from your other accounts automatically, so you don’t have to link anything. Just type in your “starting budget” for the month then it takes that number and decreases it from there.
- Budgeting at your fingertips – get a quick snapshot of your budget via the smartphone app!
- 34 day free trial… it doesn’t hurt to give it a try!
I’m a week into my free trial and I LOVE it. It was time-consuming at first because I had to go through all my account statements and categorize everything, but I quickly became fascinated with all the nifty, simple features. For example, when you go in the red for a month, it will take it out of your next month’s income, so you are really kept accountable for what you spend. There is no, “Oh well, I will just have to do better next month” with this app. It also has a pie chart visual to show you where all your money goes. I even watched a series of Youtube videos on it – I wanted to get as much out of it as possible and not miss a thing.
So anyway, if you’re still on the hunt for a good budgeting tool – I highly recommend this one!! Happy Budgeting (do those two words even go together??)… 
Hellobee Series: Mrs. High Heels part 12 of 14
1. The Cautious Temperament by Mrs. High Heels2. The Case for a Doula by Mrs. High Heels
3. Confessions of an (Ex) Cloth-Diapering Mom by Mrs. High Heels
4. How the High Heelers Budget by Mrs. High Heels
5. College Funding with 529 Plans by Mrs. High Heels
6. 20 Questions to ask when Interviewing a Preschool by Mrs. High Heels
7. Korean-Chinese Postpartum Rituals by Mrs. High Heels
8. The Vaccination Debate by Mrs. High Heels
9. Mrs. High Heels' Sleep Training Story by Mrs. Bee
10. Our Peanut Butter Scare by Mrs. High Heels
11. Our Birth Plan for an Unmedicated Hospital Birth by Mrs. High Heels
12. You Need a Budget!! by Mrs. High Heels
13. Our Meal Planning Process by Mrs. High Heels
14. Pumping at Work by Mrs. High Heels
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21628 posts
I use an excel spreadsheet for our budget. I tend to get a couple weeks behind at a time. This app sounds interesting. I’m going to have to look into it and show my dh!
honeydew / 7444 posts
Ooh, sounds awesome! We use an excel spreadsheet that i created, but like you, there are times when i go over the budget while itemizing. Thanks!
cherry / 110 posts
How timely! I was just searching for a better budgeting app!
guest
(Owner of YNAB)
Alright, Mrs. High Heels, you need to tell your friends to email me so I can send them some shirts. Any user THAT passionate about YNAB needs a t-shirt or two!
Thanks for your writeup–made my day!
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
@Jesse – Uhhh you just made MY DAY by commenting on my post!!! Don’t I get a shirt too for this WONDERFUL write-up?? Haha I’m jk… Seriously, GREAT app and thanks for stopping by!! This is by far the best budgeting program I’ve ever come across.
guest
Shoot me an email and I’ll send you a shirt as well
These shirts look good with high heels.
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
I totally forgot about YNAB!! thanks for the reminder! My dad bought me this program when I was in high school and it’s how he taught me how to budget and balance my checkbook. He helped me for the first couple years I had my bank account and once I moved out at 19 I was on my own. I didn’t always do the best with it apart from him but I have fond memories of budgeting with my dad!
We have been doing a paper budget thus far and I like the ease of it but now I’m considering buying YNAB again! I loved it and huge perk that they have the app too!
coconut / 8305 posts
Wow! How great! I think I may totally have to check it out! We’ve started doing D.R. stuff too and I’ve totally got my notebook tracking things! This would be so much better for me I think b/c I tend to do everything I can either on my computer or on my phone!
pear / 1610 posts
Sounds great! Is the app compatible with an iPad?
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
@creativemomma15: It’s mac compatible so I would think so! I haven’t tried with my iPad yet because you can’t purchase the mobile app unless you pay for the desktop version first. I’ll have to wait til my free trial is over to test that out.
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
@Mrs. Pen: Sounds like you had an amazing dad who knew what he was doing – what a sweet memory.
I wish I learned to budget from my parents!
papaya / 10560 posts
How much does it cost? DH and I were just talking about budgeting better and this sounds like something awesome! We have mint, but like you said…the re-categorizing every month drives me CRAZY.
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
@matador84: It’s a one-time $60 fee. It downloads to Cloud (they use Dropbox) so you’ll be able to access it from any computer (and you can switch between platforms too – so if you’re a Mac AND PC user, you’ll be able to access it from either comp)… and it syncs to your phone too.
papaya / 10560 posts
Awesome!! I use Mac but DH uses pc.
So…we’re on a tight budget…ha ha…worth the 60$? I have to sell it to DH!
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
@matador84: Haha! Try the free trial first to see if you like it, and if you do I think it’ll be worth the splurge. You’ll make up your money in the long run once you get control of your budget!! That is worth its weight in gold (imho)…
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
@Mrs. High Heels: I do wish we had spent more time doing it, or that I’d been more invested in learning since I didn’t do so well that first year on my own! But I am thankful he did what he could
it helped A LOT! Especially when I married someone whose parents had never discussed with him!
admin / watermelon / 14210 posts
i am totally downloading this app. i was looking for something like it!
papaya / 10560 posts
@mrshighheels right about that!
guest
Maybe I’m just a mint.com addict, but I’m confused…. They DO have a user-friendly rollover feature, and you can set rules so that places you shop often are automatically categorized. Just saying, for anyone who is interested in a comparison.
bananas / 9357 posts
I’m going to check this out! Certain things about mint annoy me. Can both DH and I have it on our phones and sync with each other?
kiwi / 603 posts
I need to check this out! I’m still using excel an would love to move my budget to the cloud. Great rec!
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
@Jess – My issue with Mint wasn’t that it didn’t track rollovers, it was that it seemed to make it more difficult than necessary for me to categorize and create categories the way I wanted them organized. I’m not the best judge of Mint though because I didn’t use it for more than a couple months – I’m sure there’s a reason why people like and choose to use it, but it just wasn’t for me.
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
@mrskc: I haven’t checked out the phone app yet, but I’m pretty sure it will sync two phones if you’re using one account to track your budget. It even syncs between PC’s and Macs, which will be useful for those who use both!
bananas / 9227 posts
Thanks so much for this post. I ended up downloading one called ‘Spending’ – it fits our lifestyle more and I can use it to track our expenses for an upcoming trip. I’m kicking myself for not starting one sooner, but if it wasn’t for you, I’d probably would have never started!
GOLD / pomelo / 5167 posts
Ooooooooo this sounds amazing. Lets hope it’s compatible with Canadian banks
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
@Mrs. Sunglasses: they offer an option for Canadian currency, so I think it is!
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
@Mrs. Sunglasses: I don’t know what I was thinking when I typed my comment (I’ll blame it on sleep deprivation and pregnancy brain), but I realized this morning that Canadian currency is also U.S. Dollars! What I meant was, the program supports most worldwide currencies so I think it should be able to support Canada’s banks too.
pomelo / 5331 posts
Meh, I was on board until I saw it costs money. I am 100% sure it’s worth it, but I’m super cheap and can’t justify $60 for something that we already do really easily for free. We just use a spreadsheet on Google Docs (I cannot get DH to pay any attention to it or even remember the login, so I should say, “I just use Google Docs and alert him when there’s a money situation”) and if you use simple formulas, it will automatically do the math for you when you enter an expense. How do I handle rollovers? If I have $60 left in the misc column at the end of the month, I could just add that $60 to the “Available” sum in next months. But more often than not, I just ignore it. That way, we are building up extra money in our checking account and creating a cushion for the months when there’s an unexpected expense, and if we don’t know we have extra money, we won’t spend it. I just go into our checking account every few days and add up the expenses and tally them in the appropriate columns. Easy peasy — and free.
blogger / persimmon / 1398 posts
Oooohhh… So passing this on to my husband who has been on the lookout for a new solution. Thank you for the awesome tip!
pomegranate / 3580 posts
I just went to their site and downloaded the trial. I’m SUPER excited about this. Our spreadsheet just wasn’t covering it.
wonderful clementine / 24134 posts
I am working on the free trial right now too. I really hope this works for us!!!
@Jesse – Thanks for stopping by!
grapefruit / 4213 posts
DH is in finance and this is the budget app we use for our personal finances. It’s so handy to be able to record the cash I paid for a parking garage immediately before I forget and things like that using the app on my phone.