Just finished up my second week of ynab and I am absolutely loving it. Even convinced my fiancée to budget her stuff as well.
It was so satisfying on payday to top off the necessary things and then throw the rest of the money in savings and fun stuff. I don't want to turn super frugal, but it has totally helped with unnecessary spending. For instance - I went to the store yesterday to get some toiletries and I would normally grab a few extra things to make the trip "worth it", but I ended up just getting what I needed.
Question for those that use it: I currently have a savings category that has a few things in it (all under the savings account on the left too). What do you do about Roth IRA contributions and things like that? Just budget it in and pay it out every month? I wish I could somehow see the running total on the left, but I don't mind doing it this way.
I'm glad you are enjoying YNAB. I've been using it since 09/2016 and love it. Pay days and filling your categories are the best!
The way I have mine setup is I have my BUDGET accounts (checking/savings/credit cards) and TRACKING accounts (Scottrade,401K, Vanguard Brokerage, Van Rollover, Van Roth IRA). I update the balances "manual adjustment" once a month after my 401K contribution clears so I can track the net worth report. YNAB recommends you don't put stuff like mortgage/car notes/student loans in tracking but you can.
I have my "Retirement" sub category under the Quality of Life Goals category group and budget into that category as I see fit until I contribute to the fund outside of YNAB. When that clears the bank account, I make a transfer from that budget/bank account to the tracking account. It deducts from my budget category and you can track it under the spending reports. This will knock down your age of money because YNAB thinks you are spending it but I don't care too much about that.
If you don't track those retirement accounts you can just do a transaction to the company of your retirement fund from your retirement category if your bank doesn't auto import transactions. Mine doesn't so I have a little more work to do but I feel a better sense of control on what is going on.
Off Topic: Try to get into the habit of recording your transactions and expenses on the fly in the phone app and let YNAB match them when they clear your bank account / credit card and import. It makes it much easier to stay on budget because the credit card imports seem to be about a day behind them actually posting to your account. If your category amounts stay as "real time" as possible, you can better control spending and it's easier to stay on budget.
