Guest Post: You Need a Budget

It's been another day here in Charlotte. I would like to say that our place is coming together, but now that the movers have show up with all of our stuff, it is even more of a disaster. Hopefully, by the end of this week we will have things in order.

I have asked another one of my lovely blog friends to guest post today. Rebekah was one of my very first followers and even recently won the 100 follower give away! Since one of my goals for next month is to re-do my budget, I have asked her to share with ya'll her budgeting technique! I hope you guys learn a lot from her, as I did! And if this just isn't enough for you, check out her blog, Living && Learning for more great stuff!

Without further ado...

 Hi! My name is Rebekah, I blog over at Living && Learning.  I'm so excited to be here today! I was over the moon when Lindsey asked me to do a guest post! I just love her blog & it's one of my daily reads!

Just a tid bit about me; I'm your average Texas girl {born & raised} and married to a great guy who puts up with way too much out of me!

Through a long series of events, some beyond our control & others, just plain bad decisions, The Hubs and I found ourselves in quite the pile of debt when we got married 2 years ago.
When I started blogging - it was a way to document our work towards financial freedom.
It's defiantly evolved from that, but living within our means is still an important part of our life and something I occasionally blog about.


Today I want to tell you about a great budgeting tool, YNAB!
YNAB is short for You-Need-A-Budget
It's not fun, but no matter who you are - you need a budget to be financially healthy!

Next month, the Hubs & I will be paying off the last of our credit card debt!!
 Using the YNAB system, we've identified frivolous spending and cut back - we will have paid off about $7500 in debt in just over a year!

There's no time to wait! When I talk to people about setting up a budget, I hear something like "we'll look at doing that when we have a normal month" or "we have this big expense this month, so maybe next month?"

"There are no normal months. Your expenses do not occur evenly throughout the year, and if you don’t plan for the high-expense months, you’ll be in a world of hurt."

Source

YNAB is really easy to use! It keeps all your information in one place and helps you to monitor your expenses and find ways to reduce unnecessary spending.

This isn't for the faint of heart. You can't be half-hearted about wanting to fix your finances or a spending problem and use YNAB effectively. It takes dedication and work.

YNAB works with 4 basic principles -

1. Give every dollar a job
2. Save for a Rainy Day
3. Roll with the Punches
4. Live on Last Month's Income

The first step in budgeting is tracking and knowing your expenses. YNAB is excellent for this!
The reason YNAB works so well for us is it creates a deep accountability.  When used properly, you don't look at your bank account to see your 'available funds', you look to your budget to see how much money you have left for the month. Your budget that accounts for your known upcoming expenses. This deep accountability revolves around manually entering all of your transactions.

One of my favorite features of YNAB that I haven't found with another form of budgeting is the ability to see the average of past months amounts spent to help you make an educated decision on how much you should budget this month.

The details:  You can get YNAB free for 34 days if you're interested in checking it out but aren't sure that you're reading to take the plunge.  The cost of the plunge you ask? $60.00
This is a one time purchase, and for us - it was worth it!
If you follow this link, you can get a discount on the purchase of YNAB software as a referral bonus.

Disclaimer: I was in no way compensated by You Need A Budget Inc. or encouraged to review their product. The views and opinions were entirely my own based on my experiences with their company and software. Also, for the record: I have changed some of the figures numbers and amounts you are seeing (a girls' gotta have some secrets ;)  )

Thank you so much for letting me bend your ear! I hope you'll consider YNAB, or some of the other great options out there for managing your money responsibly!