I use envelopes with Banktivity and the way I manage this is to set the recurring transaction for the correct date in the future and set it to an annual frequency. As long as the recurring transaction is in the category of the envelope then it shows up in that envelope in the future and -in theory- Banktivity tells me how much to have in the envelope to cover it.
It works, but the envelope budgeting is nowhere near as intuitive as YNAB. I live with it because the rest of the app is great. I really like that I can see forecast reports for my accounts based on envelope budgets and future transactions in addition to having the envelopes. The portfolio and net worth elements are great to have in the same app as my budget too.
And if the company is to survive at some point they will have to again. YNAB is located in the U.S. where the dollar has lost a lot of its value in the last 10 years. Today it takes $1.33 to purchase what cost $1 in 2014. They have approximately 100 employees worldwide and things are even worse in some places.
I wouldn’t keep working for a company that didn’t give me a raise. I couldn’t afford to, very few people can. Subscriptions aren’t going away. As with any purchase, we will have to decide if a product being offered today is worth the price.
I’m not defending YNAB specifically. I may see things differently because there was a time in my career when I was the person who had to justify raises, etc. for approximately 1000 people.
YNAB is estimated to generate annual revenue of around $75 million as of 2024, but it is a private company so we don’t have data about it.
If we calculate with an average salary for software industry employees with 100.000$ per year, we have personal costs of 17.7 million $. Let’s assume 3 million for technological infrastructure (Amazon AWS). Costs for maintaining and improving the software platform, as well as customer support, are typically embedded in the personnel costs.
Other operating costs like legal advice and similar services, let’s say 1 million.
So, about 21- very over-estimated 25 million in total expenses and they still have 50 million USD profit.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want do down talk your experiences. I live in a country with a very high inflation rate. Employees should be paid.
I see your point. But they aren’t dying from hunger. Even if we double yearly costs.
I don’t agree that subscriptions are here to stay. Right now people are cutting back on their monthly costs because suddenly money is worth way less. And “blown-up” companies like YNAB will see, if they can sustain their business model. Because 177 employees is crazy for a good looking Google spreadsheet.
You may be correct. But if we want to use YNAB, ChatGPT, or Apple Music, etc. we will need to decide if it is worth the price.
We continue to have great momentum in Services as the growth of our installed base of active devices sets a strong foundation for the future expansion of our ecosystem, and we see increased customer engagement with our Services offerings. - Apple CFO Luca Maestri, Q3-2024 Earnings Call
As Apple continues to grow services I expect them to find a way to charge us for Apple Intelligence.
I use Moneydance for envelope ZBB approach. It has iOS/iPadOS apps, but is Mac (or Windows) based application. Syncs via iCloud or Dropbox for mobile apps. No subscription, one-time purchase (unless there’s a need to update to a future major version release). It has a budgeting function, but I don’t use it. Setting up envelope accounts is very effective for me. Good luck, there are many options out there.
Yes. The main checking account then shows the overall balance of the account (main + subs) in the left column, but the checking balance inside the account detail view only shows what’s residual after money has been moved to the sub accounts. My goal is for the main account to always read $0.00 so “each dollar has a job” as YNAB would suggest.
I have a rather long and boring video I created for my daughter and son-in-law to walk them though the setup process if interested in more details of how the program can handle an envelope system:
You can’t beat YNAB. It’s a learning curve and might not be for everyone but it can’t be beat in terms of features, updates and, yes it’s pricy, but it won’t go away
It turns out you can The answer is Actual Budget, which is free and open source and built the same way as YNAB!
After @Drewster and @jmanko16 recommended it I’ve looked into it again. When I looked into it in 2022 it just seemed too intimidating to implement (for example I think at that time there were only GitHub files to download which is very scary for non-tech people!). The onboarding has been much improved since then. Now you can just download the app straight to your Mac (no GitHub required!), and they’ve set up a hosting option so that you don’t need to do any of that yourself if you don’t know how it works.
Because it’s now easier to get started, I decided to give it a go in my testing, and for me I clicked immediately because the app is basically YNAB without the frills. I haven’t really had to learn how to do anything because I’m familiar with the mechanics already. I haven’t decided how I feel about my budget being on Mac when I usually manage it on my iPad, but it turns out I like the idea of it all being locally stored on my devices. I’m considering if I might want to set up the server option so I can use it in iOS but I’m also thinking that being Mac only is much more sustainable long-term and maybe I will just leave it like that. I’ll see how it bothers me over the coming month.
Here’s a couple of follow up notes on the other app I’d mentioned that I tested this week:
Lunch Money: Good-looking software with a generous pricing scheme, but the manual was not very good and it didn’t seem designed for zero-based budgeting. I couldn’t figure out how to implement it well and gave up. It’s browser only, I’m not sure how I felt about that, I think on the whole I was probably ok with it but I’m not sure! In the end it didn’t matter since it didn’t seem to have been designed for zero-based budgets anyway.
I don’t think so, as far as I could tell it doesn’t use currencies at all (numbers are written 1234 instead of £1234), so there wouldn’t be a way to distinguish different currencies. No good for your situation unfortunately.
It’s an interesting question though. Mine is only spending in a different currency (no savings) so I just record the £ value (my main currency) as my bank has done that work anyway. But I only have British bank accounts so that makes sense to me. Is it that you have accounts or funds in different countries so can’t do that? (Or are moving money about so frequently that this would be annoying?)
It’s pretty reliable in terms of sync. Never had any issues. I use it on the iPad and then the iPhone to enter inflows or outflows manually. I don’t use the bank sync. There’s a shortcut to enter amounts manually. It’s pretty fast to do it this way and makes it more reliable. I use it occasionally on the web to view certain reports, but I think those are evn now available in the iPad app
As I understand it, all my data would be stored “somewhere” on the web whether it is presented in a web browser on the Mac or in an app on an iPhone or iPad. It may be on YNAB’s own servers or in somebody else’s cloud.
I generally prefer to feel like I’m controlling my data locally on my own Mac, which is why I’m asking about MPU experiences with YNAB data security and reliability.
If you value your data, then I personally would not use YNAB. YNAB uses PLAID. Because PLAID collects all your banking data, login data, personal information, everything. And then they use it to make as much money out of it as possible.
You can read about it here:
PLAID uses your login data to login to your bank account.
PLAID was also the defendant in a class action lawsuit. “The allegations include that Plaid obtained more financial data than was needed by a user’s app, and obtained log-in credentials (username and password) through its user interface, known as “Plaid Link,” which had the look and feel of the user’s own bank account login screen, when users were actually providing their login credentials directly to Plaid.”
If you want your data stored locally on your Mac, Actual Budget would be the one to use, as it’s very similar to YNAB but is a local app to your computer with no data stored elsewhere unless you choose to set up a server.
With regards to syncing and data loss in YNAB though, I’ve never had a problem with YNAB, the sync across my devices has always worked perfectly for me. Please note though that I don’t have YNAB integrated with my bank accounts, and I have no idea what that experience is like and how it might affect usability (it shouldn’t, but there’s a difference between you logging on once a day/week to manually enter transactions and an automation logging transactions, so just flagging!).
Also just to balance out this thread for any newbies: my disgruntlement with YNAB (and I suspect those of a lot of others in this forum) is from the perspective of experienced YNABers. We’ve “been through the programme”, done the work and are now just ticking along, and the cost and direction of the company can be hard to accept. But if you’re completely new to zero-based budgeting or perhaps have never been taught how to manage a household budget, YNAB is superb because it’s the only app (as far as I’m aware) that has a whole education programme to teach you how to budget. I strongly recommend reading the book, the articles, perhaps watching the videos (I didn’t, but I don’t tend to watch videos. I’m sure they’re probably good!).
While I wouldn’t recommend YNAB to experienced budgeters, I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to budget properly. This stuff should be taught in every school. I wasn’t completely new to budgeting, I’d kept my own budget since I was 14/15, but I still found it life-changing.
The answer is Actual Budget, which is free and open source and built the same way as YNAB!