Freedom from financial paranoia : Personal Finance

I'm fairly new to YNAB (less than a month) but have devoted energy and time in the last few decades to staying in control of my finances. As a result, DH and I recently retired completely debt free. We own our home and our car, and have no credit card debt whatsoever. We had also managed to accumulate enough savings to live on for over a year without compromising our lifestyle, which is simple but comfortably middle class. Finally, we had a pretty predictable retirement income, based on a combination of Social Security, employer pensions and annuitized personal investments.

So why, you might ask, did we decide to start using YNAB? Although DH and I have similar spending habits and priorities, I tend to sweat the details way more than he does, and that disconnect was creating some minor (but still noticeable stress between us). I had been managing our monthly "budget" with an Excel spreadsheet where I included monthly expenses, and emergency fund, a buffer, and ongoing savings. Because this spreadsheet provided only a snapshot of each month in isolation, it didn't provide insight into how well we were doing category-by-category over time. As a consequence, it was impossible for me to see that we were not, in fact, enjoying our retirement as much as we could and should. When I stumbled across YNAB, I had already realized that something was out of whack because our savings were growing way more than necessary. So I decided to give YNAB a try.

It took me just over a week of playing with the software, exploring the forums, and attending a couple of webinars to recognize that YNAB offered someone like me real freedom from financial paranoia. Thanks to my spreadsheet, I was able to create a budget in YNAB that reflected all four "rules" in the YNAB Method, including living on last month's income. At first, I spent a lot of time in YNAB, setting up on-budget and off-accounts, entering transactions as they happened, scheduling regular transactions, and comparing the YNAB data with my bank and investment data. After 8 days, I took the plunge and bought the software on March 1, so I could record the transaction as a March expense. I also bought the YNAB app for my Kindle Fire and have started using it to record transactions as they happen when I'm out and about. So cool!!

This morning, it took me less than 5 minutes over my morning coffee to take a quick look at my online checking account, approve a couple of scheduled transactions in YNAB that had moved into the queue for today, and enter two small transactions based on cash purchases. Even better, DH and I are planning for our first vacation in over a year.

Source: http://www.youneedabudget.com/forum/personal-finance-f9/freedom-from-financial-paranoia-t20636.html

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