Budgeting? For real?
Yep, for real. I've had a horrible relationship with money for as long as I can remember. I do great on the little things, then POW a large impulse purchase. Thing is, I don't care about copying the Jones' I just talk myself into shit.. I grew up in lower income brackets in the deep South. My mom managed the household finances and truth-be-told, did an amazing job. We had every thing we needed and once in a while, something we wanted. I knew we didn't have much but we never suffered. For some reason that skill didn't transfer, maybe it's because we never talked about it. People, talk to your kids! There's so many skills you can transfer to them!
My parents did not go to college so when my sisters and I gave it a go we were on our own. At this time I was making decent money for a kid so I was concerned more about working and hanging out than I was college. In high school I got by on intellect, college doesn't care about intellect, it's about showing up and doing the work. Result? F's and withdrawals that were too late to get refunds. Blew through my GI Bill and any Pell Grants I had.
Somehow I kept going, I never got that deep in consumer debt but I carried a balance for years and years. Pay it off, buy some more speakers for my car...
Now in my 40's I was in better shape, solid income for my region of the country. 3 college degrees (hello student loans.. oy) and starting a new job, incidentally where I received my degrees. That's right a University. I was/am so happy to work at the University. Great mission, I mean come on it's a University, much better than some bloodthirsty retail joint. Benefits are great, free tuition for me and 1/2 price for dependents (my 529's thank you) and a real live pension. Pensions are worth their weight in gold as long as they are cared for properly. Knocking-on-wood, surprisingly ours here in Alabama is doing OK. I need it to last about 40 years give or take a decade...
"So What's the app?"
Alright already. When I received the job offer it was noted that the pay frequency would be monthly. Now my wife is a school teacher and has always been paid that way but I've always been every two weeks/bi-weekly etc. Obviously the amount of money is the same, but if you screw up when you get paid monthly that's a long-ass time to wait to get paid again. I knew we had to do something. By this time we were stable money-wise, or so I thought. Good income but periodically we'd have to scramble to cover something that we knew was coming. Car tags, Christmas etc. Scramble even harder to cover unexpected things like band camp fees and irregular bills. We had tried other apps like Mint but aside from the horrendous ads and clutter the app just didn't work for us.
Enter YNAB.
If you've ever been on a message board or googled it you will hear people rave about it. We actually looked into it before but when it wouldn't connect to our small credit union we passed on it. Particularly given that it isn't free software.
Now I was desperate, I knew I had to do something and do it quickly. So we signed up and promised each other we'd do our best to buy into the product. I signed up and began the free trial. What's ironic to me is that the primary reason I didn't use it before, the lack of connection to download entries from my bank, was now a plus. Manual entry in YNAB is so much better. I login every morning and take 5 minutes to add my expenditures etc. Now YNAB is no ordinary tracker, it's a philosophy you have to buy in to. I'm not sure if it was timing or what but it was suddenly crystal clear to me. I have about 50 categories (there is no right number, some have very granular setups and others just have a few large ones.) I have entries for my annual purchases of car tags, AAA, Amazon Prime etc. My wife and I almost never squabble about money, when we do it's over a single category and not in general. I don't even keep up with my bank balance, in YNAB you live category to category. Alright Jerry take a breath. This isn't a post about the intricacies of YNAB...
The point is, after 42 years of life and lots of financial ups and downs I (we) am finally in control of my money. We've been using YNAB over 2 years and if you worry about the price, first of all there's nothing wrong with paying for good software. Second I saved more than the fee my first month just being in control. I'll never go back to my old ways, our financial future is bright and we're ready to absorb the bumps along the way.
Questions? Hit me up I'm happy to help.
Also here's my affiliate link, if you sign up for YNAB we both get a free month!
No comments:
Post a Comment