Around Christmastime, Jesse was chatting with his sister's husband, Justin, about budgets. They are both what I'd lovingly refer to as "nerds".
You know the kind of people… those people who think spreadsheets are fun. And who geek out over features in Excel. Yup, those kinds of people.
You might as well poke my eyeballs out with a hot iron rod than get to me be giddy over creating spreadsheets. But nevertheless, I love Spreadsheet Nerds because they help keep people like me in line and on track! 
Anyway, Justin started telling Jesse about YouNeedaBudget (YNAB). We'd both heard of it before had been good with using Quicken for so long that we'd not considered changing to anything else.
Well, when Jesse saw the features of YNAB, he was intrigued enough to sign up for the free trial. And it was pretty much love at first sight.
Truthfully, I can't even begin to tell you how often I've heard him exclaiming to me, to friends, or just to himself something about, "How cool and helpful YNAB is!"
I'm such a pen and paper and cash girl, but after all his raving reviews, I finally gave in and downloaded it on my phone and had him show me how it works. It's really, really impressive. I'm pretty sure I'll forever be connected to my green cash, but I love how we can see exactly how we're doing in every budget in just one glance. 
And since we have multiple budgets for our businesses and personal, it allows us to track them all in one app. Which is so handy!
I asked Jesse to share what he loves about YNAB most. Here's what he said:
- I love having mobile access to my budgets.
- I love being able to access all of my budgets on demand.
- YouNeedABudget makes budgeting easy by assigning each expense to a category and automatically takes it out of the budget when you record the transaction.
- If you record the transaction from your phone using the mobile app, YNAB will update the balance and display the new category balance once the transaction is entered.
- All budgets stay synced on all devices through Dropbox so you always look at the most recent numbers.
- You can easily import transactions at one time from your bank by importing a downloaded statement on your computer.
I asked the folks at YNAB to share what sets their Budgeting Software apart from others out there and here's what they shared:
1) You only budget money you have right now.
2) It is flexible. Rule Three: Roll with the Punches - removes any shame in overspending in a particular category any given month. It will happen. All the time. That doesn't make you a failure. Just adjust, address it and move on.
3) There is a manual component. We are asking you to be hands on, to be aware of every dollar, to be involved with your budget. This requires a little bit of time (although once you get used to it, it's super quick and easy), but this is also why it works. Without awareness nothing will change.
4) We want you to live on last month's income. Yes, this takes some time to achieve for most people, but once you can do this you will be shocked at how little stress you have about money. Once you live on last month's income, you'll never go back!
5) A lot of people think of budgeting as restriction, but what YNAB will give you is control over your finances, and that control translates to freedom.
6) A lot of people come to YNAB because they are drowning in credit card debt or paying overdraft fees every month - and YNAB changes their lives.
7) YNAB has a killer support team and offers free, online daily budgeting classes.
{The four screen grabs above are fictitious examples provided by YNAB.}
Sign Up for a Free Trial
Want to try out YouNeedABudget? Sign up for a free trial here. {Psst! YNAB is free for college students. Details are here.}
Have you used YNAB or another budgeting software before? I'd love to hear about your experiences - both positive or negative.
This post was underwritten by YNAB. We were so happy to share honestly about a product that we've found to be a wonderful tool in our home and for our finances. Read my disclosure policy here.
