During the month of December I signed up for the 34 day free trial of YNAB and though I love the App, the You Need A Budget (YNAB) system is simple enough to track on paper; though most prefer the YNAB inspired spreadsheet from Blooming Finances.
If spreadsheets work why pencil and paper?
Today, I’ve got some downtime at work as the holidays approach, so I pulled out my under-utilized Laconic Gantt Chart and began to reflect on the first half of the month as well as looking forward to January and as I wrote each category down followed by, assigned dollars, account activity dollars, and remaining available, I discovered that even if its nowhere close to as efficient as a spreadsheet or app, YNAB on paper is not just possible, its relaxing; all my hard work of uncovering the real expenses in my life was done while I read the book and began to apply the system, keeping a paper and pencil record is not just doable but almost as easy.
In the last two weeks my anxiety for budgeting nearly disappeared and though YNAB’s current pricing at $109 per year isn’t cheap, it’s worth $9.08 a month for that peace of mind.