Alex "Gus" Gustafson

You Need a Mustache

Our household recently switched to You Need a Budget (YNAB) after many years of using Mint.

YNAB is missing a report I’d find useful: Savings Rate. That metric is the most important consideration in Mr. Money Mustache’s “Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement”. YNAB has a well-documented API so I was thinking of making a tool, You Need a Mustache (YNAM), where one can oAuth into their YNAB account and get that calculation from all that transaction data.

Another YNABer started a project similar to this called Budget Reports, so I know I’m not the first person to get this joke. But there seems room here for other 3rd party reporting tools.

If you’re also a Mustachian and YNABer, leave a comment if you’d find any use in a tool like this or if there’s anything else you think is missing from YNAB.

One response to “You Need a Mustache”

  1. John Hendrix

    Hey Alex! I tried YNAB and loved it. Awesome interface and an incredible supportive community. I loved the free classes to teach you have to use it. (More software companies should try to emulate YNAB in this area!) But, ultimately I gave up on it after a year due to the daily time factor it requires from its users. I also wish they had an easier way to do forecasting to know where you will be in 30 or 60 days based on normal spending and income. I may give it a try again one of these days because the interface is so great! I’m currently using Moneydance on my Mac as essentially an electronic check register. It is dead simple and allows you to forecast with scheduled transactions. I budget via a spreadsheet. I really crave a cloud solution that works on both Mac and iOS and YNAB does do that so I may give it another try one of theses days. Best of luck with it! Keep us informed on your thoughts on YNAB in a year. I would be curious to hear what you think then as well.

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