#110 - Is YNAB Worth It?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Ben. And I'm Ernie. And you're listening to Budget Nerds.
You are not alone.
No, you are not. A phrase that we see come through YouTube search quite often is Is YNAB worth it? So Ben, we're going to tackle that today. And we're not just going to give... our take on it, because of course, what else are we gonna say, right? So, and this was just perfectly timed. We have the results of a brand new 2024 YNABer survey, and we wanted to share some of those results with y'all. So I think it's gonna be a fantastic episode. I've looked through the survey already, and the data is really compelling, really interesting.
Science.
The science, the data, what could be more nerdy? Yeah, let's get into it. So yeah, hopefully, I mean, most of you guys watching this are wine-abbers. Like, you know it's worth it. Maybe you're not, though. Maybe you're just getting started and you're like, I'm just checking this out. Is it worth the annual price?
What question are Ben and Ernie trying to answer about YNAB?
Is it worth the time, the effort, the focus that it takes to pay attention to your spending? We're going to show you that it is. So that's what this is all about. Or maybe we'll come to the conclusion that it's not. I don't know.
Wouldn't that be something?
You know what? Oh gosh, I'm questioning my entire existence. No, this isn't worth it. You and I quit on air.
Delete our YNAB accounts.
Listen, okay, you know what? Listen, we have the utmost integrity. If we conclude at the end of this episode that it's not worth it, we'll both quit our jobs.
Yes, we will. I'm putting that on the line.
All right. I think we're going to be pretty sure, though. Okay, well, let's get in... Should we just get right into the survey? Let's get right into it. There's four sections here. I wish I had printed it out, because, you know, there's nothing better than, like, flopping a survey around. Oh, I know.
And seriously, it is hot off the presses.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is the first we're talking about it. So, we asked people all sorts of questions, and we got data crunched together and words and stuff, so... Very exciting. So, yeah, let's get into it.
And I think it's worth pointing out, I mean, of course, with any data, right, there's going to be variations. Doesn't necessarily mean that this is what it's going to look like for you. And, of course, there's always other reasons why people had this kind of success. So it's not just YNAB, but YNAB is the common theme.
Yeah, for the sake of science, should we talk about how we collected this data? Who are we talking about? Because I think that's important. Sure. Yeah, so let's see. We did these surveys online in two parts, starting in September all the way until November. It was distributed across YNAB-owned newsletters and YNAB social media accounts. Okay, so we had about close to 1,957 responses online. from part one. And then we had, I don't know what happened in part two. I think we really went for it because we had 7,838 responses from part two. The second time we sent this out, uh, us based YNABers, um, who have been using YNAB for 30 days or longer. So these are YNAB users, and they're pretty engaged because these are people that follow our newsletter, follow our social media.
So it's going to be pretty engaged YNABers. But it's a good... almost 9,000 of them. So it's, yeah, it's pretty, pretty big survey. So yeah, it's pretty good. Okay. So yeah, that's, that's the methodology. That's how we got in there. We asked them questions. Maybe some of you guys actually, I mean, I think we plugged this survey probably in budget. Probably some of you guys took this survey. So it was a big deal.
And we're breaking it down into four sections, saving trends, spending trends, debt trends, well-being trends. Perfect. All right. Well, let's get right into it. Let's talk about saving trends.
Okay. So if you've been a YNAB for a while, or maybe you've consumed some of our marketing copy out there, you probably heard the term, oh, you save $600 in the first two months, right? Well, we've updated that. That was a big goal of the survey. We were like, because that survey that we did a while, it was a long time ago.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:15
2
What question are Ben and Ernie trying to answer about YNAB?
1:15–9:20
3
How was the 2024 YNAB user survey conducted and who responded?
9:20–13:47
4
How much do new YNAB users typically save in their first month and year?
13:47–27:24
5
What saving and emergency-fund trends did the survey reveal for YNAB users?
27:24–47:36
6
How does using YNAB change spending habits like autopay, travel, and dining out?
47:36–48:10
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Budget Nerds
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