In September 2024, YNAB invited over 150 fans to Salt Lake City to celebrate the 20th annivesary of YNAB and enjoy the camaraderie of people with a passion for the YNAB method. Ben and Ernie were there, and hosted a live episode of Budget Nerds. In this bonus episode, they chat with Teisha and Katie, two budget nerds who have some excellent YNAB wins that demonstrate their resilience and the YNAB method in action.

Teisha went from living paycheck to paycheck to finally getting ahead and paying off her student loans after years of chipping away at them with little to show for it. Katie used the spending habits she learned using YNAB to support her acting career in Los Angeles (a notoriously expensive city) with a highly variable income. She also managed to get through the stressful process of having her car stolen with the help of her YNAB memos, where she stored vital information like VIN numbers and insurance information.

If you're interested in attending a future YNAB Fan Fest, there are more events coming in 2025! Check the link below to sign up for dates in San Diego, Minneapolis, and New York City.

Get your tickets to YNAB Fan Fest 2025! Coming to San Diego, Minneapolis, and NYC. Tickets are ON SALE NOW:

YNAB.com/events

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Setbacks are a fact of life. Fortunately YNAB gives you the tools to be flexible with your spending plan. While we plan our spending based on normal months, life often has other ideas and our months often don't align perfectly to the "normal" or ideal. Some months, or even years, really don't align with our plans, and the unexpected expenses just keep piling up. In today's episode, Ben and Ernie talk about some of their financial setbacks in 2024, including tax withholding issues, major medical expenses, and a seemingly ever-increasing pet category.

Even veteran YNAB'ers have setbacks, but luckily YNAB doesn't just help you prepare for the unexpected, it teaches you to be resilient and brings calm in the storm when life decides to throw you curveballs.

Get your tickets to YNAB Fan Fest 2025! Coming to San Diego, Minneapolis, and NYC. Tickets are ON SALE NOW:

YNAB.com/events

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Budget Nerds Livestreams: https://www.youtube.com/@YNABofficial/streams

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YNAB'ers are great people -- as evidenced by the camaraderie and stories heard at the recent YNAB Fan Fest in Salt Lake City -- but let's be honest... YNAB'ers can also do some weird things with their money! It's a testament to how powerful the YNAB method is, that many people make big, lasting habit changes around their money, but it comes with some funny side effects. In today's episode, Ben and Ernie take a look at some of the sillier things that YNAB'ers do, whether it's swiping their card three times at the grocery store to avoid splitting their transactions in the YNAB app, rationing toilet paper until the first of the month, or pumping gas until the meter reads a perfect aught-aught after the decimal.

Get your tickets to YNAB Fan Fest 2025! Coming to San Diego, Minneapolis, and NYC. Tickets are ON SALE NOW:

YNAB.com/events

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Today Ben and Ernie try something different: they are looking at a messy budget -- a VERY messy budget -- sight unseen and attempting to clean it up. This one is a doozy, with dozens of uncleared transactions, multiple accounts including credit cards, transfers between accounts, and even a cash account. As Ben points out early on, whenever you're dealing with a neglected budget like this, you have to start by reconciling first before you start assigning dollars and moving money between categories. So Ben and Ernie wade through each account, clearing transactions and reconciling, making sure that YNAB and the bank account balances agree. Once that is done, they can get to the fun part -- building a spending plan!

Of course, this is just a fun exercise for Ben and Ernie, and an opportunity for them to share their problem solving process in YNAB, but if your budget looks like this and you are overwhelmed, there is a MUCH easier solution! You can always make a fresh start, and work with a clean slate starting today. So don't think you have to untangle the Gordian knot to get your spending plans back in shape!

This episode leans heavily on screen sharing, so if you want to see Ernie navigate through the budget as he talks through the problems with Ben, be sure to watch the YouTube video at the link below:

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Ben and Ernie hosted a Live Q&A on the YNAB YouTube channel on Oct. 30th, 2024. If you missed it, here's the full replay! They fielded questions from YNAB'ers and discussed some brand new YNAB features.

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Share your YNAB wins with Ben and Ernie!

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Ben and Ernie are going LIVE on YouTube at 1:00pm Eastern on October 30th, 2024. Come and join us! If you're tuning in after the Live show, the full replay will be posted to the podcast feed soon.

Budget Nerds on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIUGmbCDklkDCDm-cQqv2g

In today's episode, Ben and Ernie chat with Veronica Brashler, who is in charge of the Corporate Wellness program at YNAB. Veronica's YNAB story starts with working freelance as a wedding photographer with a highly variable, and seasonal income. Both she and her husband were self-employed at the same time, while raising a young family, and the stress of variable income was high. In her words, they felt like they always had to take the next job, because they weren't sure where the next paycheck would come from if they said no. This made it difficult to plan vacations or just take time off to relieve stress (during peak wedding season she would typically work multiple weddings every weekend!).

When she discovered YNAB, the stress relief was immediate. All of a sudden they had clarity around their true expenses, and how much was "enough." Today, Veronica helps others find this sense of relief with her work at YNAB. Her current job is to work with companies to provide YNAB to their employees as part of their benefits package. And she's brought lot of YNAB goodies for the Budget Nerds community!

Share YNAB with your workplace and get some swag!

Tell your employer about us and we'll reward you with some exclusive YNAB things. Here's how to make it happen:

1. Write a message to your HR team requesting that they consider YNAB as an addition to your benefits package. You can use the templates at ynab.com/wellness/share for inspiration.
2. Forward or bcc: your message to [email protected]
3. We'll thank you (profusely) and collect your mailing address.
4. You'll receive YNAB swag in the mail! 😎

Today's episode is officially the 100th episode of Budget Nerds (if you count the YouTube episodes that were published before the audio podcast feed)! Ben and Ernie reflect on the past few years, the most and least viewed episodes, their favorite episodes, and the many YNAB wins they've had a chance to share and celebrate along the way.

Thank you for listening and supporting the show with your emails and comments. Here's to the next hundred!

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If you're standing up, you might want to take a seat, because something big has happened... Ben actually changed his budget! Over the last year Ben has had some major life changes that have resulted in more monthly cashflow and also bigger expenses, so it was time, at last, to overhaul his budget. In today's episode Ben discusses the circumstances that prompted the change, how he learned to actually work Rule 2 and embrace his true expenses, and how he is assigning the new monthly cashflow.

YNAB Debt Bootcamp

https://www.ynab.com/debt-bootcamp

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One of the interesting parts of working at YNAB is you get to observe human behavior related to personal finance. As Ben and Ernie have noticed over the years, YNAB'ers tend not only to reach their financial goals -- such as paying off debt or saving for a big purchase -- but also complete a number of other goals at the same time. There's something about the YNAB process that leads to knocking down goals like dominoes.

Ben brings up an old YNAB saying: "think long, act now." Following YNAB's Four Rules, in particular Rule Two, gets you in the habit of considering your future expenses and setting aside money now so that they are covered when the expense hits your bank account. And as Ernie points out, the unofficial "Fifth Rule" -- find the money first -- puts you in the habit of identifying the tradeoffs you are willing to make to spend money on a given thing. These habits aim to help you manage your money in a sustainable way, so that you can not only meet your financial goals but continue to maintain them without incurring new debt every time an unexpected expense comes up.

For those new to YNAB, don't be surprised if your initial money goals lead to more and greater things!

YNAB Debt Bootcamp

https://www.ynab.com/debt-bootcamp

Share your YNAB wins with Ben and Ernie!

[email protected]

Follow Budget Nerds on YouTube:

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