I have not linked any of the accounts that I’ve created and I intend to keep it that way.
I, too, am impressed with their educational materials and their actually useful Help Center. I’m still early in my free trial but already thinking I would sign up for at least a year to really get the hang of zero based budgeting.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
This is a sobering recommendation that I will consider as I work through the YNAB trial period.
Actual Budget may be where I end up, or perhaps even back to another set of my well-loved spreadsheets, once I learn to use zero based budgeting. But, for now, the Actual Budget app looks pretty daunting compared to YNAB.
Thankfully not in the UK it seems! UK integration uses Truelayer, which seems to power a huge amount of the open banking infrastructure in the UK. No need to provide login details to my accounts to YNAB or third party, it’s done via API’s that I can remove access to when I want.
Unless it’s a third party using a third party in which case I’m wrong, but linking an account on YNAB brings up a Truelayer authorisation screen and link - and that’s what is noted in the bank app.
However, I did see something else online that YNAB data might be sold on still, so I am wary of that, even as a paid customer.
This has convinced me to try Actual Budget again, as there do appear to be some changes, but as someone mentioned above, the Spouse Approval Factor comes in to play as well…
I don’t recall ever reading about PLAID. Apparently, they are a very big deal.
Both my banks use Plaid, as well as a credit card that I have been using for more than 50 years. Just another reason to believe Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun Microsystems, was right about privacy.
I’m playing around with Actual right now and like it. I was on YNAB for many years but have been off and on with them for the last few years.
Really once they moved to a web based interface and started some regular subscription increases I looked for alternatives, including Banktivity, MoneyWiz (currently), and spreadsheets. None of them are as easy to use as YNAB, thought they all have their own particular benefits.
The thing about YNAB – they do a great job of making things really simple and helping you develop good habits around zero-based budgeting. Over years it just became second nature and easy. I really don’t think I would have developed those habits as well without the software. Though I still don’t understand how they do credit cards –
Depending on how much you like building spreadsheets, I wouldn’t be surprised if you recreate your own YNAB there after you’ve grown used to it.
The new method of credit cards I find awful. I now ignore it, and use a credit as a checking account with a negative balance, as I pay off in full each month anyhow. I can see what they’re trying to get at, but it doesn’t work nicely for me.
I’ve tried their loans feature and whilst I didn’t like that to start with, I’ve kind of grown to it but wouldn’t be a deal breaker if I had to use another tool that didn’t have it.
Was using excel sheets but it’s annoying to have to enter everything by hand, so your post (and Pupsino’s) led me to install Actual. I like the local server bit, and don’t mind about having it only on the mac.
I have never used a budget app, so I find PLAID and everything else a bit overwhelming… Actual offers to link accounts through SimpleFIN. Do any of you know about this? Specifically the safety? Does the fact that Actual is installed locally make it safer?
I’ve gone through this journey in 2022 and found nothing better than YNAB.
I arrived at the same conclusion. I’ve been a YNAB user every day since 2009.
yup, I really don’t mind paying for it because it gives me immense peace of mind. When I am grocery shopping, I use the home screen widget to log transactions then and there which saves time when reconciling.
Though I will say they are very slow to implement nice features (like stats on phone - solved by using the Lumy app but that’s another small subscription).
I thought I’d reply to this thread as it’s been a couple of months. I’m now all in with Actual Budget, and I’ve set up a server instance following their instructions so that I can access my budget on iPad and iPhone. It was very easy to do and shouldn’t be a barrier to anyone.
I’ve not touched YNAB since I last posted in this thread. I just don’t need it now that I am using Actual. I had intended to run the two in parallel for the remainder of my annual sub to YNAB so that I could decide which I preferred, but in the end I didn’t want to do that.
Actual Budget is open source and there’s an active Discord with users and coders discussing ideas, problems, etc. as well as tips on managing budgets. I don’t go in there much but I like the sense of community and that it’s users that are driving the development of the app.
Does anyone here use Copilot Money? I’m curious about it but I’ve heard mixed things.
I’ve searched here but wasn’t able to find any meaningful discussion of it. If anyone here has a story about it, I’d like to hear it.
I wasn’t aware of it, so I might take a look. I need to redo our joint YNAB budget as I’ve let that lapse a few months and it’ll be easier to start it afresh.
However, I can’t help but feel that Microsoft might be breathing down their neck soon with trademark disputes, especially the part where they’re talking about Copilot Intelligence!
EDIT:
Just got to the end of the front page and see it’s the same price as YNAB - that means I’m not likely to invest any major time in to it, as if it’s the same price as YNAB, unless it does anything major better, I’m unlikely to switch.
Download page states it’s US only, so I’m not able to try it.
I tried it a couple of times, but I can’t get my credit union to talk with it, so I gave up.
I’m trying out Lunch Money and so far, I’m liking it.
I’ll take a closer look at LUNCH MONEY, I guess. Thanks for the rec.
Just to jump in again and say that I’m making the switch to Actual Budget.
I’ve had it set up and running on my NAS for a few weeks and have used it for my personal budget, and it’s worked really well. My wife has had a quick look, and it’s close enough to YNAB for her, so I think I’ll take the plunge and move to a PikaPods install—purely to avoid any DNS issues on the local network (long story short, my wife doesn’t use the Adguard DNS servers that I’ve set up and therefore can’t use the DNS rewrites to access Actual Budget locally).
$17 a year seems a lot better than $110, and I’ve found it has some decent features that YNAB doesn’t, such as the monthly clean-up and more reports.
EDIT - Spelling and grammar errors!
Do you use tailscale or WireGuard? Could setup a split tunnel for her and use the DNS to tailscale IP so she could access without needing to expose to internet. Or she WireGuard for her remote login (via IP, but as I write this I can’t remember if you have to have FQDM or can use ip for actual budget).
I hadn’t made it accessible outside the home network as the offline mode works fine and she only ever updates her budget at home.
I did consider either:
A) Installing another DNS server (Adguard or PiHole) on the home network on a Raspberry Pi Zero that just has the DNS rewrites setup and no blocking for her iPad.
B) Install NextDNS on her iPad and have a profile just setup for rewrites.
Of the two, the Pi Zero would be the easiest option, and have been on networks that block NextDNS.
However, for the sake of $1.8 a month (due to 20% VAT to be added to EU customers), it’s probably easiest to just go for the PikaPods option.
If you do the DIY Adguard DNS rewrites are way easier. Also the actual budget will stay loaded locally in the browser (even safari) and will resync when local. So this might work.
I’m sorry you don’t feel like Developers, people who earn their living from writing software, need money to pay their bills?