The YNAB Blog
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Don’t be afraid of your YNAB!
If you’ve had some unanticipated money woes, like a big repair or a shopping spree you’re second guessing, it can be really easy to avoid YNAB. I totally get it; I’ve been there. It’s hard to face hard financial truths sometimes. But I’ll argue that when money’s tight it’s extra important to spend time with…
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Figuring out a mysterious Amazon charge
Today, an Amazon charge was imported to my Chase Amazon Prime credit card account in the amount of $24.15 and it was a real head scratcher. I immediately checked my Amazon order history (using this trick within YNAB) and there was no transaction for $24.15. I checked my husband’s Amazon order history. The order was…
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Doing YNAB daily
As a professional organizer, I’m a huge fan of creating daily routines to keep life running easier. In fact, earlier today I re-ran a 2021 post on my organizing blog about using daily routines to add ease to your life. One of my strongest daily habits is doing my YNAB. As I’ve outlined here, every…
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YNAB Benefit: Catching missed bills
My memory isn’t what it used to be and I can’t rely on it to make sure I receive and pay bills, particularly annual bills. Thanks to YNAB and my annual targets, though, I notice when expected bills aren’t received. At the beginning or end of every month I scan the available money in my…
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Does your spending plan tell your story?
In my YNAB coaching training (or perhaps it was at the YNAB Fan Fest) I heard someone suggest that an individual YNAB user’s spending plan ought to reveal something about the user. I love the idea that I can tell what my priorities are (or what a coaching client’s priorities are) by glancing at a…
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Be very careful of phishing scams
I feel like the fraudsters are getting more and more clever as they imitate actual financial institutions in their emails in an effort to get you to click on their link and enter your username and password. Recently I received an email purportedly from the Capital One Fraud Monitoring Department telling me they’d identified activity…
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Give every single dollar a job
As you may recall, YNAB used to have four rules and Rule One was Give Every Dollar a Job. Now YNAB. has Five Questions that support the whole method. And the method is Give Every Dollar a Job. I’ve noticed in clients a temptation to leave money in Ready to Assign (RTA) when their immediate…
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Starred Accounts are here!
YNAB has been cranking out the updates lately, some larger than others. I’m really excited about one subtle change that just appeared in my desktop app. I wanted to make sure you noticed it. You can now star your favorite accounts so that they’re grouped together at the top of the left sidebar on your…
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Do these five things for stress-free YNABing
It took me a few years to get so comfortable with YNAB it didn’t spark a little stress or overwhelm. Now, seven years into my YNAB journey I experience no stress with it and in fact really enjoy my daily YNAB routine. I actually check my budget several times a day but the morning check-in…
Are there any YNAB or spending topics you’d like me to write about?