But it is such a helper. We’ve been far less organized lately since it’s expired (it won’t interface with financial institutions anymore… but then we did get it free)

There are plenty of close calls — but be happy at least that you didn’t go over. You just had a good scare!

That’s better than my college financial strategy, which was to never check the balance so I’d always fear I had too little money to buy anything.

The best part is there are two different versions, the excel version is an application that runs through Windows, so you could put it on your thumb drive and take it with you anywhere. I have the pro version, but had I known that one was portable, I probably would have bought just the basic excel spreads.

YNAB is a cash budget, but its philosophy is that you should be using this month’s income to pay next month’s bills….Being from the Salaried folks, I can definitely see its benefits. But I imagine they’d be even more benficial with someone who doesn’t know exactly how much their next paycheck will be….either because of sales commissions or self-employed etc.

IT definitely doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of MS Money and Quicken. But it was written by an accountant out of his need to budget since he was a part time employee and full time student getting married.

It does have a 60 day free trial, but even if you love it, it’s only 20 bucks. Much more affordable than Quicken or MsMoney with the upgrade versions you are forced to buy every few years because they stop supporting the ancient versions.

By the way, YNAB does have an affiliate program. However, I am not a part of it at all. I have no website or link and make no money if anyone reads this post and immediately buys the program. I’m just a professional banker who knows the value of a working budget, but who also was a stay at home mom for 7 years and understands the frustation of the numbers on the budget vs. the numbers in the Bank. Of all the programs I have used (I’ve used MsMoney for more than 4 years, Quicken more than 4 and Mint for over 6 months)—-from my experience YNAB has the best impact on my balances and my bottom line. And you can use it in conjunction with, not in lieu of Quicken.

As for your Net worth, as long as it is going up then you are doing better than most people! Keep it up.

But – I forecast cash flow manually. I have all of my payments for the next few months already in my check register and I modify/move around as needed. The problem is with human error when forget to add a future payment in there.

Also, Money has a nifty little notification area icom which alerts me to upcoming bills. I’m sure I’ve seen that the latest Quicken does that, too…