YNAB

So  i was thinking lately of how much I love our lil app for keeping a budget, and thought maybe someone out there would benefit from it.  So here's the shpeel:

 So, when we sort of luke-warmedly tried to start a budget we tried many things.  We tried simple excel spread sheets (way too much hassle/work in keeping it up to date-we'd always forget to open up the computer once we got home and put our amounts in etc.), we tried mint.com but for some reason we weren't in love with it....maybe cause in order for it to download your bank info etc the bank was wanting to charge us a certain amount every month?, etc.  Also a lot of different budget systems didn't really carry over from month to month for example: So at the end of the month we'd look at our totals in our different areas and go whoops- we went over in date night....darn, oh well, better luck next month.  If we were doing that regularly from month to month it wasn't really helping us to save-no consequences for going over etc.You get the idea.

So we finally found something that seems to be working for us.  It's called: YNAB (short for- you need a budget-and it's in the apple app store).  Here's what I love about this app. There's a ONE TIME fee which if you use the following link will get you some money off- the phone app is free but for your computer it's 60$.  I know, it seems like a lot for something like this, but trust me, I think we will use this for the rest of our lives so it's money well spent.  and again, it's a one time fee.

discount

Now, why I like this app.
1. It's easy to use.  you sit down and create all the different categories you want: groceries, kids' needs, household needs, gas, electricity bill, netflix, rent,car payments etc etc and allot what money you need for each for the month.  Then once you have all the "have-to's" figured out, you have a better idea of what you have to spend/save every month.  Then it gets fun.  You can make a restaurant section, date night, entertainment, whatever...a general slush amount that you each get every month so you don't have to ask each other-hey, I found this that or the other and I want to get it.  etc.  The main ideology behind this method is that you can do fun stuff you just plan for it.  I think for a long time I associated budgets with having no fun just saving everything. Which you could, but you can do fun stuff-you just need to plan in advance for it.  It's the impulse spending that kills you in the end.  For example- code and I are slowly putting money away for a trip for our 5 year anniversary-just a lil each month but by the time we get there we'll have a lot and hopefully will be able to do a really cool trip.  See?  Planning.  We're already saving each month for Xmas.

The self-proclaimed goal of this app is to help you to be living on LAST MONTH's paycheck-have a lil cushion/not be living paycheck to paycheck.

2.  The amounts carry over from month to month!!! So if I go 10 dollars over in groceries this month I will get my new month's allowance the next month minus 10 dollars-helps me make up for it/has consequences which I like otherwise it's pointless and just reinforces bad habits.

3.  The app is really handy.  It's on my smart phone and the second I've paid for my groceries I can enter the amount in the proper category-you can write where you bought them/ what you bought-if you really want etc.  Now that I'm used to it I'm always reaching for my phone to log in the amount of whatever I bought-makes it much easier to see your spending habits and be more conscious of them.  Plus it sinks up with the program on your computer and code's phone so we each see what the other is doing/buying.

Towards the end of every month we sit down and look and see how we did (of course we already know cause we've been tracking all along but still, good to comunicate right?) and we talk about our needs for the next month: Jake needs new clothes etc so we can reallocate money where we need and maybe do less in another category etc.

I dunno, I just really like it and I HATE budgets usually.  so...there ya go.  Hope it gives you some good ideas.