YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

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8foot7
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by 8foot7 »

I am not sure this AMA did anything good for them at all. Might have been better in the end to embrace the sense they've gotten to be a big company with impersonal communications rather than put a guy out there saying so little other than 'sorry not sorry' -- they're extending the news cycle, not letting it burn itself out.

They're obviously a business. They need more revenue to grow that business. Unfortunately I am not at all convinced the service that business provides is worth what they want to charge now, let alone what they might want to charge in the future.

Here's a list of his posts in the AMA. https://old.reddit.com/user/YNAB_younee ... /comments/
"Our next significant releases are probably DI in the UK and some EU countries, and reconciliation coming to Android. Also, bringing some of the recent loan planning function to mobile." My note: this feels underwhelming. The loan planner is extremely simplistic and if you don't use Android or live in the EU or UK, you're paying an increase for essentially no additional value.

"We're increasing prices so that we can hire more people to build a better YNAB, now and going forward. The old price had gotten out of line with our cost structure." My note: this is obviously the deal here. They've overbuilt their staff for the product they have now and the product they want it to be (whatever that is) needs more people...nothing more to see here. As I've said, for me, no budget app is worth $14.99 a month and YNAB4 suits my needs better than the current SaaS app at a price of effectively zero (I paid $59 or something for it back in 2012, let's say it has cost me $1 a month.)
dukeblue219
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by dukeblue219 »

Yeah on one hand that did not go well, but it also wasn't the disaster some Redditors are making it out to be. He's the CEO, he's not going to backtrack and cancel the price increase.

Bottomline, YNAB isn't a guy with a nice app anymore. It might as well be Intuit.

I want to go back to YNAB4 but I hate to spend the time doing that if it will stop working some day because it's unsupported closed source software.
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kevinf
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by kevinf »

dukeblue219 wrote: Fri Nov 05, 2021 2:08 pm ...I want to go back to YNAB4 but I hate to spend the time doing that if it will stop working some day because it's unsupported closed source software.
Outside of major architectural changes of the operating system, most native programs are going to continue to function for a long time. I have a game that was released in 1993 for Windows 3.1 and it ran natively on Windows 7 (not sure about 8 because I skipped ahead to Win 10) and only stopped working when I tried it on Win 10. I would expect to not have any trouble running YNAB 4 for at least another decade, and am planning to find out :happy

Most versions of Windows are just gussied up versions of Windows NT. We moved to 64-bit (not likely we'll see a 128-bit architecture come for many decades, if ever) and stronger security and access privileges in the later versions of Windows which caused some compatibility snags... but I'm betting we're going to be fundamentally stable for the foreseeable future. Go ahead and run YNAB4 until the wheels fall off, it's probably going to be awhile.
dukeblue219
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by dukeblue219 »

kevinf wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 12:54 amI have a game that was released in 1993 for Windows 3.1[/url] and it ran natively on Windows 7 (not sure about 8 because I skipped ahead to Win 10) and only stopped working when I tried it on Win 10. I would expect to not have any trouble running YNAB 4 for at least another decade
Did that Windows 3.1 program use Dropbox for sync to a mobile app? :D

In all seriousness I'm optimistic too. I'm just a little unsure if there are going to be sneaky bugs that appear. For example, there was a bug at one point that stopped YNAB4 from working after the year 2017 but it was patched.
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guppyguy
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by guppyguy »

kevinf wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 12:54 am
dukeblue219 wrote: Fri Nov 05, 2021 2:08 pm ...I want to go back to YNAB4 but I hate to spend the time doing that if it will stop working some day because it's unsupported closed source software.
Outside of major architectural changes of the operating system, most native programs are going to continue to function for a long time. I have a game that was released in 1993 for Windows 3.1 and it ran natively on Windows 7 (not sure about 8 because I skipped ahead to Win 10) and only stopped working when I tried it on Win 10. I would expect to not have any trouble running YNAB 4 for at least another decade, and am planning to find out :happy

Most versions of Windows are just gussied up versions of Windows NT. We moved to 64-bit (not likely we'll see a 128-bit architecture come for many decades, if ever) and stronger security and access privileges in the later versions of Windows which caused some compatibility snags... but I'm betting we're going to be fundamentally stable for the foreseeable future. Go ahead and run YNAB4 until the wheels fall off, it's probably going to be awhile.
I might need to find my old copy of YNAB4 and roll back.
Refresh my memory….how does YNAB4 sync across machines? No direct import obviously.
dukeblue219
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by dukeblue219 »

guppyguy wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 7:44 am I might need to find my old copy of YNAB4 and roll back.
Refresh my memory….how does YNAB4 sync across machines? No direct import obviously.
FYI you can re-download it from YNAB and recover your key as well. It used Dropbox for sync to the mobile apps which are still available *if* you previously used them.
Mako
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by Mako »

dukeblue219 wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 7:52 am FYI you can re-download it from YNAB and recover your key as well. It used Dropbox for sync to the mobile apps which are still available *if* you previously used them.
I just did this. We'll see if I dislike manual import as much as I remember or if it's tolerable.
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kevinf
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by kevinf »

dukeblue219 wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 7:40 am
Did that Windows 3.1 program use Dropbox for sync to a mobile app? :D
guppyguy wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 7:44 am Refresh my memory….how does YNAB4 sync across machines? No direct import obviously.
I have my copy living on a google drive share, the most current budget is available on any machine I open it on. I've never found a need for the app, I've always worked solely with the desktop program. All my transactions come in from manual import every payday and when I pay my credit card. Daily updates for an established budget seem unnecessary to me.
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guppyguy
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by guppyguy »

I’m thinking I don’t really need an IOS app with YNAB4, there are not very many in the moment spending decisions I make where I need a current category balance anymore. I usually know what/where I’m going to transact before I leave the house. One less thing to look at on the phone.

Definitely going to try to resurrect YNAB4….I saw the screenshot above and miss the multi-month view.
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by wfrobinette »

muffins14 wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 9:45 am
wfrobinette wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 9:30 am
winterfan wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 8:39 am I bought the downloadable software and liked it all right, but then a year later they moved to the subscription model. I'm OK with buying something once, but I really can't stand subscription services. I switched to doing my current budget with my own spreadsheet. It works fine. I wouldn't spend $90.
Isn't your time of manual input worth more than $90?
For me, no. It takes about 10 seconds to add a purchase i to my app
I was referring to the guy using a spreadsheet.
AnonLady
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by AnonLady »

By the way, for those of you who liked YNAB4 but don’t want to dedicate your budget to unsupported old software, Actual budget is an envelope budgeting app very similar to YNAB4 but runs much faster since data is in an SQL database, and with smoother syncing than the Dropbox sync IMO. End to end encryption available. Scheduled transactions, Red forward arrow for rolling categories is available, up to 3 month view. One dev working on the side built an amazing app, though it takes some playing around to get the hang of it, as the current docs are pretty thin.

But now that I’ve got my budget up in there I’m happy to give the dev my $4 a month. He wants to add direct import, goals and custom reports soon. Maybe he’ll get a bunch of YNAB converts and be able to make it his full time job. I’m going to save money from YNAB and support the competition. Nothing will stop YNAB from taking it’s customers for granted like good market competitors and Actual is the most competitive of any of the apps I’ve checked out, other than YNAB4. But I’ve been playing with YNAB4 and Actual and the slow response of YNAB4 even without much data in my budget yet made me decide I’ll sub to Actual instead.
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guppyguy
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by guppyguy »

So it has been some time......has anybody left and found a better alternative to YNAB or are you content with where the app is now and staying?

For us, we switched to Quicken (Mac) and, while it has been good in a lot of ways, we miss envelope budgeting.
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kevinf
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by kevinf »

I'm still using YNAB4, but I have bookmarks to Actual, Buckets, and Financier in the event that YNAB4 becomes unusable. I don't have an intention of returning to newer versions of YNAB based on what I've seen from the company.
Last edited by kevinf on Sat Aug 13, 2022 3:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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guppyguy
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by guppyguy »

kevinf wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 1:27 pm I'm still using YNAB4, but I have bookmarks to Actual, Buckets, and Financier in the even that YNAB4 becomes unusable. I don't have an intention of returning to newer versions of YNAB based on what I've seen from the company.
That's an interesting list. I tried Actual and really liked it, then the developer threw in the towel. Buckets was okay but missing a lot of things.

I haven't tried Financier. How do you like it? Looks like a web-based YNAB4?
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kevinf
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by kevinf »

Pretty much a web clone of YNAB4, yes.

Sad to hear about Actual, they were definitely the most promising.
alwayshedge
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by alwayshedge »

White Coat Investor wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 5:02 pm
randomguy wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:38 pm
Lastrun wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 1:11 pm
White Coat Investor wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 1:01 pm If less than half of people leave, YNAB comes out ahead. Seems like a business risk worth taking to me.
Right, and arguably you save on customer service with fewer customers, less new install problems, etc. etc.
Why not raise it to 200 and half 1/4 the customers?:) They are making a bet they don't lose over half their customers AND that new customer acquisition doesn't slow to a trickle. 90 bucks seems excessive for the value of this type of software but the market will speak about what is considered acceptable.
In my experience Bogleheads (including me) overestimate how sensitive the average consumer is to prices, especially on the low end. You're right they're making a bet. Sounds like you wouldn't make it if you were Jesse. I probably would. I'll be surprised if it doesn't pay off. People are sticky.
100%. In addition, while it was quite a jump, $90 a year is peanuts for continually updated software. Skip a restaurant dinner or two a year and it's already paid for itself.
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Drew31
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by Drew31 »

One of better decisions I’ve made was dumping YNAB and all software budget providers altogether back when YNAB went subscription and set up a spreadsheet system to do it all myself. Was able to set it up in a way that works best for us.
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crinkles2
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by crinkles2 »

Drew31 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 3:56 pm One of better decisions I’ve made was dumping YNAB and all software budget providers altogether back when YNAB went subscription and set up a spreadsheet system to do it all myself. Was able to set it up in a way that works best for us.
Would love to know more about how you went about this?
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PicassoSparks
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by PicassoSparks »

I spent a bunch of time looking at alternatives but everything was just a little less well-featured or similarly pricy to YNAB. Did start working with Actual and then it shut down. Am looking at PocketSmith but not yet in love with it. YNAB’s value persists for me.
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Drew31
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by Drew31 »

crinkles2 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:42 am
Drew31 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 3:56 pm One of better decisions I’ve made was dumping YNAB and all software budget providers altogether back when YNAB went subscription and set up a spreadsheet system to do it all myself. Was able to set it up in a way that works best for us.
Would love to know more about how you went about this?
Going to be a long winded answer, but...

I used quicken for close to a decade. I was getting frustrated with their direction and switched over to YNAB4. It worked ok, but soon after is when the whole subscription changeover happened and I was not a fan. I also hated the idea they eliminated the negative rollover feature. Fought it and tried the new version for several months but my budgeting was actually getting WORSE. So I think it was the fall of '15 I sat myself down and figured out what exactly do I need. What are the must haves? What are the things that I'll occasionally need? What do I need to track? What do I want to track?

I have Excel skills so ended up building my own spreadsheet with a few different tabs. I have a Register tab which is essentially the checkbook register. This then looks up to two other tabs, there is an Account tab which shows balances of all the various accounts I deem 'On Budget', then the actually Budget tab which looks similar to what you'd see in YNAB4. I have all months for a given year listed across the top with the categories down the side. Each month has a budget, actuals, and available column and then it rolls over to each month. I also have a planning tab where I will either plan out various categories build out various scenarios. I have a Pivot tab as well which is where I build out pivot tables where I want to track actual spending of various categories.

I think that is the high level summary of what I went through. Our budgeting got much better when we switched to this system and whild I've made minor tweaks over the years it's worked well for us since 2016. Won't work for everyone but I love it.
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Cheez-It Guy
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by Cheez-It Guy »

I'm creating some competitive software called YDNNAB. Bargain-priced at only $40 per year! I am going to save you so much money! Get in on the ground floor.
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by sailaway »

Cheez-It Guy wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 12:45 pm I'm creating some competitive software called YDNNAB. Bargain-priced at only $40 per year! I am going to save you so much money! Get in on the ground floor.
My YN2NB is only $25/year.
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by mptfan »

guppyguy wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 10:04 am As a larger comment, do we really need all of these subscription services????
No, we don't.
guppyguy wrote: Have we complicated our lives so much that our tolerance for even the slightest inconvenience drives us into the arms of a million companies more than happy to drain dollar and cents from one’s earnings just so we can avoid any and all hassle??
Some of us have, and some of us haven't.
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8foot7
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by 8foot7 »

I continue to use YNAB4. If it stopped working, I'd put in the time to create an Excel imitation customized for our little quirks (work travel reimbursements/the "right arrow", goals, etc.).

I don't really begrudge the YNAB team for going the subscription route. Recurring revenue is the holy grail in SaaS. My main issue at the time they went to the cloud was they also removed a couple of crucial workflow items for me (the ability to not subtract deficits in some categories from the next month's available to budget figure, as at the time I was receiving substantial monthly reimbursements from my company due to travel expenses and other things; I wasn't willing to use software that considered me "in debt" and have to rejigger my monthly spending when I knew the reimbursement was coming like clockwork every 21 days), and the stupid "age of money" feature which I still find to be a useless gimmick. I saw no reason to pay monthly for what I deemed to be crappier software, and while they've added some--but I daresay not very many at all--attractive features in the years since, they've as best I can tell fixed neither of those major issues for me and now the price has reached a level where I have no interest in joining.

I don't find continuing to use YNAB 4 to be inconvenient in the slightest. It works the same as it has since 2011/2. I know it like the back of my hand. It costs me nothing to maintain. Why pay more for less, when what I need is right here and free?
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Cheez-It Guy
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by Cheez-It Guy »

sailaway wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 12:52 pm
Cheez-It Guy wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 12:45 pm I'm creating some competitive software called YDNNAB. Bargain-priced at only $40 per year! I am going to save you so much money! Get in on the ground floor.
My YN2NB is only $25/year.
I would like to collude with you to take out YNAB. There's room for both of us, but you're damaging margins and market expectations with your low-ball pricing.
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crinkles2
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by crinkles2 »

Drew31 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 12:28 pm
crinkles2 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:42 am
Drew31 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 3:56 pm One of better decisions I’ve made was dumping YNAB and all software budget providers altogether back when YNAB went subscription and set up a spreadsheet system to do it all myself. Was able to set it up in a way that works best for us.
Would love to know more about how you went about this?
Going to be a long winded answer, but...

I used quicken for close to a decade. I was getting frustrated with their direction and switched over to YNAB4. It worked ok, but soon after is when the whole subscription changeover happened and I was not a fan. I also hated the idea they eliminated the negative rollover feature. Fought it and tried the new version for several months but my budgeting was actually getting WORSE. So I think it was the fall of '15 I sat myself down and figured out what exactly do I need. What are the must haves? What are the things that I'll occasionally need? What do I need to track? What do I want to track?

I have Excel skills so ended up building my own spreadsheet with a few different tabs. I have a Register tab which is essentially the checkbook register. This then looks up to two other tabs, there is an Account tab which shows balances of all the various accounts I deem 'On Budget', then the actually Budget tab which looks similar to what you'd see in YNAB4. I have all months for a given year listed across the top with the categories down the side. Each month has a budget, actuals, and available column and then it rolls over to each month. I also have a planning tab where I will either plan out various categories build out various scenarios. I have a Pivot tab as well which is where I build out pivot tables where I want to track actual spending of various categories.

I think that is the high level summary of what I went through. Our budgeting got much better when we switched to this system and whild I've made minor tweaks over the years it's worked well for us since 2016. Won't work for everyone but I love it.
Thanks. You've inspired me to use Excel and Pivot tables... Almost there. In Australia, not only do we need to pay the full YNAB subscription, but also local bank connecting software via API on top of that (similar price). It's a bit much.

Must say I've learnt a fair bit about Excel in the process...
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by dvvader »

I’m a new YNAB user as of this year (started in January) and have found it to be worth the cost. If it was just me, I could get by with a spreadsheet no problem, and would probably prefer that. However, the YNAB app syncs across devices and makes it very easy to keep my wife aware of and involved in our finances, which is something we struggled with previously. That alone is worth the cost of admission for us.
Bogleheads® emphasize regular saving, broad diversification, and sticking to one's investment plan regardless of market conditions.
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WingsFan4Life
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by WingsFan4Life »

I've been using ynab4 for 7 years. It was purchased in sale for $15. I would create my own spreadsheet before I would pay a subscription.
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by audioengr »

muffins14 wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 9:45 am
wfrobinette wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 9:30 am
winterfan wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 8:39 am I bought the downloadable software and liked it all right, but then a year later they moved to the subscription model. I'm OK with buying something once, but I really can't stand subscription services. I switched to doing my current budget with my own spreadsheet. It works fine. I wouldn't spend $90.
Isn't your time of manual input worth more than $90?
For me, no. It takes about 10 seconds to add a purchase i to my app
How many purchases in a year? x $0.10 = ??
What is your hourly rate?
Basically, we're trying to find if your time is greater than the $90.
And since this only applies to legacy users who were paying $45/year. The marginal cost is $45.

For reference:
$45 / $0.10 = 450 transactions / 52 weeks = 8.65 transactions per week.
I imagine every person on here has more than 9 non-automatic transactions per week.
Hoosier CPA
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by Hoosier CPA »

That's the problem I've had with all my excel solutions - I always fall behind having to manually enter data. It's not all that time consuming but it's a headache. I've been happy with YNAB. I'd love to see a feature added that would allow budgets to be presented in multiple ways. For example I have it organized by frequency of payment, so I add money to the monthly and less than monthly buckets each paycheck. But I'd also like to have it set up by category (house, car, etc.).
Mako
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by Mako »

Soon after this thread started I went back to using YNAB4. I figured I'd try it for a while and see how it goes and if it would be acceptable instead of subscribing again. My subscription ran out this month and I canceled it as YNAB4 has been perfectly fine. I thought I would hate entering transactions again after having automatic import for so long, but I haven't minded and to some extent I think it makes me pay attention to the transactions more. I'm averaging about 48 transactions per month, though many are automatic and easy (some things like cell phone, internet, mortgage, car payment are the same every month, pay check is the same every two weeks though it changes occasionally...). I don't think comparing time spent to my hourly wage is meaningful as it's just a few minutes here and there.

So the increase wasn't a huge money amount, and I could afford it, but they managed to lose me by making it a big enough % to stop my inertia. If the price hadn't changed or perhaps went up a small amount I certainly would have stayed due to that inertia. But I imagine they are fine with that and making it up elsewhere.
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Drew31
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by Drew31 »

crinkles2 wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 9:46 pm Thanks. You've inspired me to use Excel and Pivot tables... Almost there. In Australia, not only do we need to pay the full YNAB subscription, but also local bank connecting software via API on top of that (similar price). It's a bit much.

Must say I've learnt a fair bit about Excel in the process...
I love doing it this way. What I like the most is having the control to tweak something to work for me if I want something to alter something. You'll likely find ways you'll want to adapt it as you go so I wouldn't strive for perfection from my own experience. Find the things that are most important and focus on serving those. You'll find other things to add in over time.

Another thing I do that helps is each year I create a new spreadsheet (basically just copying the prior year and then clearing out the register and budget values). I find this helps tremendously as a bit of a reset.
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kevinf
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by kevinf »

audioengr wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 7:04 am
muffins14 wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 9:45 am
wfrobinette wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 9:30 am
winterfan wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 8:39 am I bought the downloadable software and liked it all right, but then a year later they moved to the subscription model. I'm OK with buying something once, but I really can't stand subscription services. I switched to doing my current budget with my own spreadsheet. It works fine. I wouldn't spend $90.
Isn't your time of manual input worth more than $90?
For me, no. It takes about 10 seconds to add a purchase i to my app
How many purchases in a year? x $0.10 = ??
What is your hourly rate?
Basically, we're trying to find if your time is greater than the $90.
And since this only applies to legacy users who were paying $45/year. The marginal cost is $45.

For reference:
$45 / $0.10 = 450 transactions / 52 weeks = 8.65 transactions per week.
I imagine every person on here has more than 9 non-automatic transactions per week.
This seems to be overstating the difficulty of YNAB4's manual import function. Many, if not most, transactions are likely candidates for auto-tagging (VerizonMobile payee is always Cell Service, Comcast is Cable, McDonalds, etc are always fast-food). That's how it works for me at least, I really don't have many transactions that need to be tagged by hand anymore. I'll import the Quicken data file from my bank and most of my transactions get tagged automatically... a process I usually only do twice a month (each payday). My last import was 25 transactions, and I only had to tag a handful of them.
beardsicles
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by beardsicles »

Hoosier CPA wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 7:59 am That's the problem I've had with all my excel solutions - I always fall behind having to manually enter data. It's not all that time consuming but it's a headache. I've been happy with YNAB. I'd love to see a feature added that would allow budgets to be presented in multiple ways. For example I have it organized by frequency of payment, so I add money to the monthly and less than monthly buckets each paycheck. But I'd also like to have it set up by category (house, car, etc.).
Excel will now allow you to import financial transactions. I’ve been meaning to sit down and build a zero budget spreadsheet using the new functionality and just haven’t gotten to it yet. If someone wants to beat me to the punch and share it… :sharebeer
Jags4186
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Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by Jags4186 »

Still curious if someone can explain to me what YNAB does that Mint doesn’t.

With Mint I can:

Input monthly income
Input monthly expenses by category
Input lumpy expenses by month
Carry over from month to month any excess or deficits in a particular budget line item
Input savings goals
Know to the exact penny what I spent and saved in a month/year
YoungSisyphus
Posts: 346
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2018 7:35 am

Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by YoungSisyphus »

Love me some YNAB4 and will continue manually logging until the software stops working. I like reconciling accounts and reviewing online bill statements. The manual logging keeps me diligent at continuing to check in. Money starts slipping through like water when it’s too automated for me. Sometimes I like the little pain of keying in a purchase I know I didn’t really need. :)
muddgirl
Posts: 364
Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2016 1:33 pm

Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by muddgirl »

Jags4186 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 1:44 pm Still curious if someone can explain to me what YNAB does that Mint doesn’t.

With Mint I can:

Input monthly income
Input monthly expenses by category
Input lumpy expenses by month
Carry over from month to month any excess or deficits in a particular budget line item
Input savings goals
Know to the exact penny what I spent and saved in a month/year

YNAB is an envelope or zero-based budget system. With YNAB you budget money that you already have in your bank account. It's been a few years but from what I remember Mint is based on monthly budgeting. They are different philosophies.
Morris89
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2011 6:36 am

Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by Morris89 »

I'm still with YNAB, I don't really have the time to switch to something else right now. I was able to stand up my own Actual server when the author open sourced it. It's probably where I'd put my effort if I find time to switch. The things that are really important for me are being able to designate money for a specific purpose (virtual envelope), being able to look up past transactions and to see where I spend my money. It may be I can find an alternative using a spreadsheet.
beardsicles
Posts: 415
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2021 12:38 pm

Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by beardsicles »

muddgirl wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 2:23 pm
Jags4186 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 1:44 pm Still curious if someone can explain to me what YNAB does that Mint doesn’t.

With Mint I can:

Input monthly income
Input monthly expenses by category
Input lumpy expenses by month
Carry over from month to month any excess or deficits in a particular budget line item
Input savings goals
Know to the exact penny what I spent and saved in a month/year

YNAB is an envelope or zero-based budget system. With YNAB you budget money that you already have in your bank account. It's been a few years but from what I remember Mint is based on monthly budgeting. They are different philosophies.
Yep, just a different approach. I don’t find the Mint approach particularly useful now that I’ve been zero-budget pilled but ymmv. Been five years since I used Mint and would not go back. Although I will have to make a choice about the new fee structure in November.
muffins14
Posts: 5528
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2016 4:14 am
Location: New York

Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by muffins14 »

audioengr wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 7:04 am
muffins14 wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 9:45 am
wfrobinette wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 9:30 am
winterfan wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 8:39 am I bought the downloadable software and liked it all right, but then a year later they moved to the subscription model. I'm OK with buying something once, but I really can't stand subscription services. I switched to doing my current budget with my own spreadsheet. It works fine. I wouldn't spend $90.
Isn't your time of manual input worth more than $90?
For me, no. It takes about 10 seconds to add a purchase i to my app
How many purchases in a year? x $0.10 = ??
What is your hourly rate?
Basically, we're trying to find if your time is greater than the $90.
And since this only applies to legacy users who were paying $45/year. The marginal cost is $45.

For reference:
$45 / $0.10 = 450 transactions / 52 weeks = 8.65 transactions per week.
I imagine every person on here has more than 9 non-automatic transactions per week.
I think the friction is a feature not a bug. Since I add transactions as I go, and see myself spending, the effect is that it makes me sometimes want to spend less. Kind of like the mental trick for people who say spending cash helps them spend less than using a credit card, because they see they have less cash after a purchase.
Crom laughs at your Four Winds
User avatar
crinkles2
Posts: 244
Joined: Fri Nov 28, 2014 7:18 pm

Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by crinkles2 »

Drew31 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 9:27 am
crinkles2 wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 9:46 pm Thanks. You've inspired me to use Excel and Pivot tables... Almost there. In Australia, not only do we need to pay the full YNAB subscription, but also local bank connecting software via API on top of that (similar price). It's a bit much.

Must say I've learnt a fair bit about Excel in the process...
I love doing it this way. What I like the most is having the control to tweak something to work for me if I want something to alter something. You'll likely find ways you'll want to adapt it as you go so I wouldn't strive for perfection from my own experience. Find the things that are most important and focus on serving those. You'll find other things to add in over time.

Another thing I do that helps is each year I create a new spreadsheet (basically just copying the prior year and then clearing out the register and budget values). I find this helps tremendously as a bit of a reset.
I know now how to append tables in power query :sharebeer

This way I can have each account on it's own tab, and the query combines all registers together. Then I just creat a pivot table by category and grouped by month, then the budget sheet used getpivotdata based on the category and month I'm in.

When I considered this, I realised my Microsoft 365 family account was cheaper than a YNAB subscription... 5x people with 1 TB each and each having access to latest office software, for less than YNAB, which can't even do family sharing. I think YNAB's pricing is over the top.
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Drew31
Posts: 736
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2012 1:18 pm

Re: YNAB doubles it’s prices for legacy subscribers

Post by Drew31 »

crinkles2 wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 6:57 am
Drew31 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 9:27 am
crinkles2 wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 9:46 pm Thanks. You've inspired me to use Excel and Pivot tables... Almost there. In Australia, not only do we need to pay the full YNAB subscription, but also local bank connecting software via API on top of that (similar price). It's a bit much.

Must say I've learnt a fair bit about Excel in the process...
I love doing it this way. What I like the most is having the control to tweak something to work for me if I want something to alter something. You'll likely find ways you'll want to adapt it as you go so I wouldn't strive for perfection from my own experience. Find the things that are most important and focus on serving those. You'll find other things to add in over time.

Another thing I do that helps is each year I create a new spreadsheet (basically just copying the prior year and then clearing out the register and budget values). I find this helps tremendously as a bit of a reset.
I know now how to append tables in power query :sharebeer

This way I can have each account on it's own tab, and the query combines all registers together. Then I just creat a pivot table by category and grouped by month, then the budget sheet used getpivotdata based on the category and month I'm in.

When I considered this, I realised my Microsoft 365 family account was cheaper than a YNAB subscription... 5x people with 1 TB each and each having access to latest office software, for less than YNAB, which can't even do family sharing. I think YNAB's pricing is over the top.
Nice! I did something similar with Microsoft 365 except I use a personal account. I was going to have that anyway which was another data point in me deciding to create my own. Rarely do I actually need to review my budget when I'm away but I can generally check on my phone now via Excel when needed. If I'm traveling, I've set it up in a way where I'll enter transactions on my iPad. I know many despise the manual entry part of it but I actually prefer it and for me the headaches around manual import actually took up just as much time as if I'd just have done it myself. Someday maybe I'll do a full write up on how I've created and set up my budget via Excel.
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