So, without going into a ton of detail, my husband is a software engineer who makes around 90k gross a year. We were young and stupid and just threw money at whatever we wanted. This came to an abrupt halt this last week when we literally ran out of money. Like I said, young and stupid.
We have been testing financial software for the last few days, and I remembered hearing about YNAB. They've got the whole 34 free days promotion, so we thought why not. Mint was crap, Toshl has become confusing, GoodBudget only allows one account on the free trial, and sucks anyways. And obviously we weren't doing great with a spreadsheet because we were in serious trouble.
So I set up YNAB minus a week or so (back to the 15th) and worked on 1/2 of April, and all of May. We were lucky and have a pretty substantial tax return coming to us, so I put that in too. Husband gets paid on Friday, put that, and his next two paychecks in. Done, easy. And the mobile app is wonderful.
So, YNAB tells me 2 things. 1) Yes, we can still afford to go to Portland for our 1st Anniversary. and 2) Yes, we can afford to go out tonight for our 11 month anniversary. (We celebrated on the 25th every month for the first year. After next month, the celebrations will be every 6 months until our 5th, and then every year.)
I learned something super interesting today too. I grew up with other people forcing their way of handling money on me. When I was a young adult (18-24) I was living with my narcissistic grandmother who had complete control over my finances. So doing money, budgets, and whatnot was super stressful to me.
A budget is nothing more than a to-do list. It cannot control you. You have to decide to have the willpower to keep the little boxes green. A hammer cannot build a shed by itself and a budget cannot do your finances by itself. But you also cannot build a shed without a hammer, nor control your finances without a budget.
After I figured that out, just by the way YNAB designed their app, suddenly everything fell into place in my mind. We have a solid plan worth executing, and we'll be back on our feet in a few months.
So to anybody, who, like us, completely fucked up, it's Okay. I realize that we're in a better position because my husband makes a substantial amount of money, but you can do it too, I promise. It's all about knowing, and working with, the numbers that are real, and right in front of you. If you're afraid to look at your bank statement, you won't know when you hit that 0. So please, muster up the courage to log in, or go to your branch, and start from there. Tools like YNAB can be the stepping stone to financial security.
Submitted April 25, 2017 at 06:12PM by TarnishedTeal http://ift.tt/2otSC57
