The YNAB Quick-Start Guide For those budgeting on Windows or Mac

v. 4.0 The YNAB Quick-Start Guide Pg. 1

Contents About ...... 2 What is YNAB?...... 2 What Does YNAB Do? ...... 2 Who’s to Credit for All of This? ...... 2 Features ...... 3 Method ...... 4 Rule One: Give Every Dollar a Job ...... 4 Rule Two: Save for a Rainy Day ...... 4 Rule Three: Roll with the Punches ...... 4 Rule Four: Live on Last Month’s Income ...... 4 Creating a Budget ...... 5 Setting Up ...... 5 Adding Budget Accounts ...... 6 Crunching Numbers ...... 7 Creating Categories...... 8 Making Memos ...... 9 Final Words ...... 9

The YNAB Quick-Start Guide Pg. 2

About

What is YNAB? You Need A Budget (YNAB) is multiplatform budgeting software that helps with visualizing and maintaining a budget. YNAB is available to those using the following operating systems and devices:

 Windows  MAC  Android  iOS  Kindle Fire If you’re running YNAB 4.0 on a Windows or Mac desktop or laptop, this guide is for you.

What Does YNAB Do? YNAB is different. Instead of hooking up to your bank account to show you where your money is going (we hope you know better than to not check your transaction history), YNAB helps you set up a plan so you save more money and get out of debt. How? It’s simple. YNAB is founded on four basic rules—we call this our Method—to help you work with the money you currently have: 1. Give every dollar a job 2. Save for a rainy day 3. Roll with the punches 4. Live on last month’s income Another not-so-little perk of not being connected to your bank account? YNAB works everywhere: whether you’re up north or down south, far east or out west, YNAB will be your budget buddy every step of the way. Sound good? We’ll get acquainted with the Method later on page 4.

Who’s to Credit for All of This? You can thank Jesse Mecham for realizing he was broke and having the sense to do something about it. A former public accountant, Jesse now spearheads the YNAB and , helping others to get a hold of their finances. Oh—and he also created this whole YNAB thing, which is kind of neat.

This is Jesse! That’s the million dollar smile of a budgeting wiz.

The YNAB Quick-Start Guide Pg. 3

Features For PC and Mac: YNAB syncs seamlessly across Windows and Mac computers—so you can budget from work and from home with zero software boundaries. Unified Account View: “All Accounts” let you view all of your transactions in one place, making it easy to find out where exactly that $50 was spent. Global Currencies: YNAB supports just about every currency in the world, so you have no reason not to budget your summer trip to the Taj Majal. Non-Evil Upgrade Policy: One license works across all your computers, and all minor updates are free! Incredible Support: YNAB has a robust customer support team offering live classes, screencasts, and e-mailed answers to requests for help—all for free. For after-hours support and chit-chat, we’ve put together the YNAB Forum so you can connect with some of the friendliest YNABers out there. Recover From Mistakes: Life might not have backspace key, but YNAB does. Recover from budgeting mistakes by reverting to a past version with a single click. It really is that easy. Easy Split Transactions: Split transactions are transactions that affect multiple budget categories— like when you go AWOL in the department store and purchase a bunch of needs, wants, and then some. Insightful Reporting: YNAB translates your financial history into easy-to-read graphs and reports— because what good are numbers if they make zero sense? Scheduled Transactions: YNAB lets you create automatic scheduled transactions—pretty ingenious for bills and paychecks, if we do say so ourselves. Autosave: YNAB saves your budget while you’re working and when you quit, eliminating the need for re-crunching those numbers. Reconciliation Wizard: This wiz lets you bring together all your accounts with ease, letting you check that YNAB and your balances are in sync. Powerful Search: Dates, amounts, payees, categories, or something else entirely? YNAB consolidates categories to let you search through everything at once, so you can find exactly what you’re looking for. Notes Everywhere: Months, categories, budget amounts—you can make memos for it all. Spending Quick-View: YNAB lets you not only view where all your money is going, but also edit that number if the transactions don’t add up with your day-to-day spending. Walkthrough Tutorial: What better way to learn about YNAB than using the software itself? We’ll walk you through all of the above features and more in the embedded tutorial when you download the app. You’ll be a budgeting pro in no time!

The YNAB Quick-Start Guide Pg. 4

Method Four simple rules that don’t only look at what goes out, but also what comes in. It’s really that simple.

Rule One: Give Every Dollar a Job Money is power, and with great power comes great responsibility. In YNAB, responsibility is knowing that $500 in the bank doesn’t mean $500 to spend on whatever your little heart desires. It means allocating that $500 to budget for fuel, rent, food, fun, and—most importantly—savings. This is giving every dollar a job—and this is what prevents you from blowing through your paycheck in the first week of the month, and living off instant ramen for the other three weeks.

Rule Two: Save for a Rainy Day So you’ve been following Rule One pretty religiously. You know what this means? You are no longer spending on impulse. Instead of buying those flimsy mesh sneakers for $100, you budgeted that $100 away into your savings. So, when your bi-annual dental checkup reveals a couple of new cavities, the only pain you feel is in your jaw and not your a—you get the drift. You saved up for a large, infrequent, sneaky expense, and you didn’t even feel the bill when it came. This is what happens when you save for rainy days: nothing will blindside you ever again.

Rule Three: Roll with the Punches Nobody’s perfect. There will be days you might go grocery shopping on an empty budget, or to a fancy Brazilian steakhouse because your girlfriend’s parents suddenly showed up in town. This will throw off your budget. And it will be okay. You are in charge of your budget, and you have the power to be flexible with it—within reason. If you spend $50 more on food than you planned, spend $50 less on movies, clothing, or fuel. Can’t seem to find a category to cut into this month? YNAB will automatically deduct spending from next month’s budget. Look through your budget, move money around, and get back on that financial horse.

Rule Four: Live on Last Month’s Income If you’ve been following all the Rules, you’ll notice you’ve received a bit of a raise. No, not from your boss (although your responsibility skills are off the chart), but from yourself: you’ve been putting money aside as you get savvier with your spending. If you keep saving, you’ll have saved the equivalent of one month’s pay (it takes the average YNABer just about 4 months to do this).You’ll have a month’s worth of paychecks saved up in your Buffer Zone (this is capitalized because it’s important). When the bill arrives, you’ll pay it. You won’t worry about the next paycheck because the money will already be there, sitting in your savings. Give yourself some breathing room, and it’ll pay off. No need to pinch yourself, this is real life!

The YNAB Quick-Start Guide Pg. 5

Creating a Budget YNAB makes it easy for you set up a working budget in minutes. After you’ve downloaded the app, enable Cloud Sync and get ready to revolutionize your finances.

Setting Up After downloading YNAB and setting up Cloud Sync, you’ll be prompted to set up a budget. We promise it won’t take long. 1. In the Budget Setup window, enter a name for your budget. 2. Select whether to Cloud Sync your budget (we recommend you Cloud Sync to have easy access to your budget on-the-go). 3. Select a budget category. Most YNABers budget for personal/family reasons, and select the corresponding category. 4. Select your preferred currency and date formats from the dropdown menus. 5. Click to finish setting up.

The YNAB Quick-Start Guide Pg. 6

Adding Budget Accounts After setting up a budget, you need to set up a budget account. Budget accounts are accounts that fund your budget—pretty simple, right? Examples of budget accounts include checking accounts, cash income, or student loans. For this little how-to, you won’t need to enable off-budget accounts. Off-budget accounts are accounts that you can add to YNAB to track their progress. They do not fund your budget, which makes it difficult to incorporate them into the Methods. Categories, which help you budget, only exist within budget accounts, and any money send to an off-budget account can’t be used to fund any expenses. Long story short—if you spend from an account, you should set it up on YNAB as a budget account.

1. In the navigation menu, click .

2. In the “Create a New Account” window, enter an account name, the current balance, and the date of the current balance (probably today). 3. Select the account type from the dropdown menu. 4. Select the recommended “Budget Account” option if your account will fund your expenses— which it will, right? 5. Click to finish setting up. We’re on a roll!

The YNAB Quick-Start Guide Pg. 7

Crunching Numbers You’re finally ready to budget. Track your monthly expenses by filling out the cells on this section of YNAB. As you fill out the cells, know that it’s okay to guess budgets—you can always change them later.

1. In the navigation menu, click to access the monthly budgeting spreadsheets. 2. Start budgeting! Click on a cell and type in the budget for that subcategory. Remember—it’s okay to guess budgets. Continue budgeting until each dollar has a job and there is nothing left to budget.

The YNAB Quick-Start Guide Pg. 8

Creating Categories YNAB comes with a default set of master categories (like “Everyday Expenses”) and subcategories (like “Groceries,” “Fuel,” and “Spending Money”) towards which you can allocate your account balance. You can customize these categories to suit your budgeting needs, or leave them as is.

Master Categories 1. Click beside Categories to create a new mastery category. 2. Give your master category a nice name. 3. Click to finish creating your master category. You’re one step closer to better budgeting!

Subcategories 1. Hover over the master category that you want a subcategory to, and click . 2. Give your subcategory and equally nice name as the master category (or at least a descriptive name). 3. Click to finish creating your subcategory. That wasn’t too bad, was it?

The YNAB Quick-Start Guide Pg. 9

Making Memos You can add notes to both master categories and budgets to make financing even more fun. 1. Hover over the category and click the notepad to add note. 2. Write something relevant to that category—or not. Whatever floats your boat. 3. Click to finish creating your note. Your note will be pinned to the category or budget cell.

Final Words Working on what you have right now focuses you on what’s important: right now. When you’re budgeting, remember to… 1. Figure out what your money needs to do before you get paid again. 2. Set up categories to save for those rainy days and avoid sneaky bills. 3. Change your budget if you need to—no two months are ever the same in spending. 4. Send money to the future.