You Need A Budget (ynab)

Jesse answers questions from the YNAB mailbag, including whether a couple should save for new cars to replace aging vehicles, or pay down the mortgage faster, whether debt consolidation is a good idea, and how exactly do you know when it's ok to spend money?   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Jesse shares one key indicator that you are budgeting and doing your money right.   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Not having money stress is a GREAT feeling to have. But a YNAB employee, Katie, pointed out a downside to it -- people assume you make more money than you really do. Because who else would  have no money stress except people who are rolling it in?   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Jesse fields more listener questions today, including what you should do when you double your income (teaser: there's really not a wrong answer as long as it's saving!), how to budget for real estate investments, and whether debit cards have sufficient fraud protection to use over credit cards.   Please keep your questions coming! Send them to: askjesse@ynab.com     Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Jesse answers listener questions about tracking 401k deposits in YNAB and how to strategize paying off student loans. Jesse shares his evolving thoughts about credit cards, and why the Mecham household will only use a single debit card for expenses in 2023.   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Last week Jesse urged YNAB'ers not to make any sudden or drastic moves to their budget. But you know it's the beginning of the year, and that can only mean one thing! It's time for a budget burndown.   Every year Jesse burns down his budget... er, plan, and examines every single assumption built into it. Do we really need to own a house? What if we lived in an RV for awhile? Do we need two cars? What if we sold one? Etc, etc. The point of this exercise is to question everything, and in the process, better understand what your non-negotiables are. In most cases, you'll likely put most of the categories you had back into your plan. But perhaps the burn down process helps you identify a couple areas that don't really serve you anymore, or dollars that could be more useful doing a different job.   So, get ready to burn it down!   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Happy New Year! We hope 2023 is a fruitful and productive year, financially and otherwise, for everyone. It's that time of year again, the time for resolutions, big goals, and new plans. Jesse urges you to pump the brakes, however, and DO NOT make big changes to your budget. Not right now. Just iterate on what you've been doing, and try to do a little bit better than last year.   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

We hope you had a Merry Christmas and very happy holiday! If you didn't use YNAB to plan for this year's Christmas bill, that's OK, you can start now for next year! In January start saving for Christmas 2023 by putting aside one twelfth of the Christmas budget each month.   Jesse also has another exercise for you. Write a little note to yourself about what went well this Christmas, and what you want to do differently next time. Then set a reminder for that note to open back up in October 2023. You'll have forgotten by then, and you'll have plenty of time to prepare to make the next Christmas even better than the last.   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Jesse shares some of the gifts he's given his wife, Julie, over the years, and why every year from now on the gifts will be made, not bought.   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Jesse answers a grab-bag of questions from listeners, including whether it's a good idea to track 401k investments in YNAB (it's not), how to budget for early retirement, good books for learning how to to invest, and more.   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

It's a fact, you do. We know this because banks LOVE credit cards, and they're incentives for using credit cards rely on the fact that many people spend more money on credit than they would otherwise. Jesse meditates on the nature of credit card fees, incentives, and the game that banks play to get people to spend on credit.   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Jesse riffs on the idea that money has different "tenses," that is, money's purpose is to be spent, and spending can happen in the past, present, or future. Debt is past spending, savings is future spending, and so on. It's an interesting idea, one that might help you better visualize the purpose of money in your own life, and how it aligns with your priorities.   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

For everyone listening in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving! Jesse encourages us this week to step back and make a list of everything we are thankful for. Taking a moment to express your gratitude for the things you have and the things that are going well in your life is not only good for your soul, it's good for your budget too! We tend to spend so much of our time in the weeds of categories and transactions, that a little time looking at the big picture and being grateful can help us get back in touch with our priorities. Is what you have enough, is it sufficient?   As Jesse says, you really can't be too grateful!   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Jesse shares results from a recent survey of YNABers asking: "what's the biggest thing you've saved for with YNAB?" Vacations, cars, houses, college... there are some big line items indeed!   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

YNAB'er Allison asks: of all the metrics in the YNAB software, which is the most important one to track? To which Jesse answers... none of them! Jesse prefers to track net worth over time, which is not captured in YNAB since it's a calculation of the value of what you own minus what you owe. As Jesse explains, though, if you are working the Four Rules well, then you will create more opportunties to save and invest money and pay off debt, all of which will increase your net worth.    Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com  

Once you've started working the Four Rules, you start to realize that most of your money is kind of... spoken for. You need to pay the rent, the utlities, insurance, and so on. When you get through the list of non-negotiables, there's often just a few hundred dollars each month to play around with in the budget, and those dollars are where the real gains are made. Like David Bach's "latte factor," the small optional expenses we accumulate without budgeting properly can add up to big savings over a surprisingly short amount of time.   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com  

Killian, a YNAB 4 user, asks about Rule Four and the "age of money" metric. How long should you age your money before you can relax a bit and not budget so stringently?   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Jesse drops a reminder that Rule Three, when properly implemented, happens before you spend the money on that unexpected expense -- not after!   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Jesse talks with domestic abuse survivor and now advocate, Dr. Kerry Roarke. Despite a successful career in pharmacy, Kerry found herself stuck in an increasingly abusive marriage, with very little say or power over how she spent or saved money. Since leaving that relationship and righting her financial ship, Kerry has volunteered to help other women find shelter and safety from domestic abuse, and identify the red flags that signal abusive relationships.   Without access to money, women have few resources to leave an abusive relationship, find shelter and food, and obtain legal help. There are many agencies, charities, and non-profit organizations across the country that can provide resources, but finding them can be a challenge. So, Kerry helped create the Safe House app, which compiles all the local resources available to people in a single place.    You can find the app, and other resources, at https://yoursaferplace.org     Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email at: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a

A listener, Tom, writes into the show to express some confusion over what constitutes "savings" in a budget following the YNAB method. During a call with his bank to discuss refinancing, Tom was asked how much savings he had on hand, a question which dumbfounded him. Technically, everything in the budget is savings, he reasoned, since every dollar had been subjected to Rule One, and was sitting in categories to be spent sooner or later. So... is all money just savings in that case?   Jesse offers a saying from one of the YNAB teachers, that all savings is really just... spending! Money exists to be spent -- sometimes now, sometimes tomorrow, and sometimes years in the future. But money that is not spent eventually is useless, so in that sense all "savings" is really just money waiting to be spent.   Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: askjesse@ynab.com   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com