If you prefer to use stand alone software without the need for a spreadsheet program, consider You Need A Budget Pro.
In addition to budgeting worksheets, You Need A Budget also comes with six free bonus spreadsheets:
- YNAB Primer to help you to save one month's expenses
- YNAB Debt Snowball to help you get out of debt
- YNAB 2006 Income Tax Forecaster to help to estimate taxes
- YNAB Retirement Planner complete with "what if" scenarios
- YNAB Mortgage Analyzer to show you how to pay off your mortgage sooner
- YNAB Car Maintenance Schedule to help to keep your car running longer
Using You Need A Budget
YNAB consists of three worksheets with on screen directions and explanations in text boxes which can be moved around the screen or deleted as it suits you.The three worksheets in YNAB are:
Register: Record all your income and expenses in the register, much as you would in standard personal finance software or a paper checkbook register. There is room to record the date the income or expense took place, category, payee, and description.
Budget: Set up spending categories and enter budgeted amounts for each month. All other figures on this worksheet are automatically computed for you.
Overview: Shows year-to-date, total and average spending for each category. You will also see your personal net income using total income less total spending, and how many times and the total amount you over spent for each month.
Plan on spending a few minutes recording income and spending daily or every few days. Do not make income and expense entries less often than once a week or data entry could get to be too time consuming. Then once a month you will need to set aside about 20 minutes to look your budget over and distribute the money you have available across spending categories, and you are all set.
You Need A Budget Pros
Save time: Once You Need A Budget is set up, you only maintain and analyze your personal budget in total for about one hour per month.Less stress: Because YNAB works on the principle of spending money you already earned and not money you will earn in the future, you will not experience overdrawn accounts or extreme personal budget deficits (you are not spending what you don't have).
Fluctuating income: Most budgeting software requires the person with fluctuating monthly income to enter an average income for each month. This doesn't give an accurate view of income, and paying bills will be difficult if income is unexpectedly low one month. Since YNAB only has you spending what you have already earned, dealing with fluctuating income is easier.
Rainy days: Save for unexpected expenses and expenses that occur less than once a year with YNAB, and not just your usual categorized expenses.
Ease of use: If you are familiar with Excel, using YNAB is a breeze. But even if you haven't used a spreadsheet before, YNAB has on screen explanations and directions for your data input and you can't get simpler than that. YNAB does all the number crunching behind the scenes formulas never interfere with beginner's experience.
User Support: You Need A Budget comes with a user manual in PDF format. This manual is comprehensive, yet only 11 pages long because YNAB is not complicated to use. The YNAB website has a good Frequently Asked Questions section and if you can't find an answer in the FAQs, click on "Ask a New Question" and enter your question with your email address to get a reply with an answer to your question. Another perk: the Articles section of the YNAB website offers software tips along with advice and thoughts on managing personal finances.
Guarantee: Use YNAB for up to 60 days. If you don't like it, you will get your money back.
Low cost: One-time cost of $19.95. The developer is currently does not charge for upgrades, so pay for YNAB once and you are free to re-download the product if needed and to download future upgrades.