[panda888888]

I also switched from Mint to YNAB a few years ago, and YNAB is head and shoulders better than Mint. I've always had good finances / self discipline and didn't think I needed YNAB, but it's been way better than Mint for me. It's easily worth the cost.

[jnsie]

If you don't mind me asking, what makes it worth the cost for you? I'm a long time mint user with very good financial discipline and can't imagine paying $100 per annum for such a service. But I'm open to learning new things and would love to hear your experience...

[panda888888]

I didn't understand this until after I switched to YNAB, but Mint wasn't future-focued enough for me. I've always been good about saving and tracking my spending, but with the way I used Mint, I usually only focused on the current month. I had good savings so I easily had ~5k of comfortable wiggle room floating around if I needed it for random expenses, but I also wasn't planning ahead in detail.

Example: Need new tires? Yeah, I had the cash, but I wasn't really expecting/tracking those things, so sometimes a bunch of expenses would all hit at the same time.

YNAB has a philosophy called "give every dollar a job." At first, this feels so intuitive that it's almost silly, but after you've used YNAB for 3+ months, it builds steam.

For instance, if I know now that I'm going to need new tires next summer, I can think "Do I want to spend $50 on dinner out today, or put the $50 into my 'new tires' fund to use in May? With Mint, I wouldn't be thinking about May. I'd be focused on the current month, or maybe one month ahead. But with YNAB, I budget much further out into the future, and I do so in granular detail. So no more "5k wiggle room cash on hand for random things in the future" -- everything is planned. I'm probably more type-A than most YNAB users, but I have 50+ categories to stash money into, including things like future vet bills, future car maintenance, specific funds for vacation in Spring 2024, Summer 2024, December 2024, etc. (Most people probably have fewer categories)

Pre-YNAB, I'd think "Do I want to spend $50 on dinner now, or do I want to save it?" With YNAB, I think, "Do I want to spend $50 on dinner now, or do I want it for my vacation in December 2024?"

The result is that mental tradeoffs are significantly more clear, and I can prioritize better. In terms of value, I'm honestly not sure if I save $100 per year, since I was very frugal even before YNAB, but the mental clarify of having full transparency into my current and future choices is easily worth $100 to me.

[satertek]

YNAB is definitely very "opinionated". You have to convert to their "give every dollar a job" budgeting method, but I found really works well for me.

I moved off of Mint when they were acquired by Intuit, so I felt the price was worth it maintain full auto-import capabilities in an ad-free app. (The way Mint advertised at the time didn't really bother me, but I assumed that ads would get more intrusive under Intuit)

[nytesky]

Does YMAB download automatically? When I looked at it before it was very manual

[satertek]

The original desktop app was all manual, but the web app has had auto-import from banks, credit card companies, etc.

[panda888888]

Yes, it downloads automatically. There's also an option to do it manually if you'd prefer.