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I actually hadn't heard about bitwarden (thanks) - I'll check that out. I'm not in YNAB's target market either, but the value they provide is useful even if yo

I actually hadn't heard about bitwarden (thanks) - I'll check that out. I'm not in YNAB's target market either, but the value they provide is useful even if you're not struggling month to month with finances. You get really good control over your money and a much better understanding of how you're spending it and where. Being really aware of that makes it easier to actually leverage it more because you know exactly what you can put where so you can be closer to zero in your checking account (push more towards investments, etc.). It also makes it easier to change behavior and know exactly what knobs you can turn with your finances. Only downside with it is that the auto-import sucks (I suspect because the bank APIs suck). I move all transactions through one credit card and I manually create transactions in YNAB when the card is charged. I use the Apple Card which has really good software so it's easy to notice transactions and make sure things line up. My username is also from when I was 13 and really excited about linux :-), now mostly on macOS - I haven't really lived up to it.

PascLeRasc 6y ago
Which file export do you use from Apple Card to YNAB? I'm looking at doing the same thing and I'm curious which works best.
- fossuser 6y ago
  I don’t export - when a transaction is made I open the YNAB app and quickly add it. I resisted doing this for a long time because I thought it would be awful, but it’s actually easier than dealing with import issues and reconciling later.
jonjohn84 6y ago
I'll give the opposing opinion that YNAB's auto-import works well for me (I use it with a local credit union, 2 credit cards, and an online savings account). In fact, I used my own homebrew budgeting software for over a year before I found that YNAB exists and does everything I needed from my own software plus imports from banks automatically which was my biggest pain point with my own solution (it involved painful csv exports every month). I have been happy with YNAB for a year and a half at this point. Your luck may depend on which bank(s) you want it to work with. I believe their bank import api provider was recently acquired by Plaid so they are now using Plaid (as I understand it).
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  They are using Plaid, and yeah, it varies wildly by bank. FWIW, I don't know that having a bank that doesn't play nice with Plaid is a deal-killer. There is a school of thought among many YNAB users that you should not use the auto-import, or even csv/ofx/whatever import, because manually entering transactions takes only a few minutes a day, and gives you much better awareness of your outflows. I can see some merit to that, insofar as tightly controlling your spending is kind of YNAB's whole thing.
  - jonjohn84 6y ago
    Even with auto-import, you still have to "approve" each individual transaction that is imported, at which time you can assign it to a category (or approve the auto-suggested category). So that works for me in terms of being aware of spending on a regular basis. And if you manually enter some transactions as you spend, it automatically matches them up with your bank's version of those transactions as you import so you don't end up with duplicates. So it's okay to use it in a hybrid mode where you sometimes enter transactions manually and sometimes wait for them to show up automatically.

PascLeRasc 6y ago

Which file export do you use from Apple Card to YNAB? I'm looking at doing the same thing and I'm curious which works best.

fossuser 6y ago
I don’t export - when a transaction is made I open the YNAB app and quickly add it. I resisted doing this for a long time because I thought it would be awful, but it’s actually easier than dealing with import issues and reconciling later.

jonjohn84 6y ago

I'll give the opposing opinion that YNAB's auto-import works well for me (I use it with a local credit union, 2 credit cards, and an online savings account). In fact, I used my own homebrew budgeting software for over a year before I found that YNAB exists and does everything I needed from my own software plus imports from banks automatically which was my biggest pain point with my own solution (it involved painful csv exports every month). I have been happy with YNAB for a year and a half at this point. Your luck may depend on which bank(s) you want it to work with. I believe their bank import api provider was recently acquired by Plaid so they are now using Plaid (as I understand it).

mumblemumble 6y ago
They are using Plaid, and yeah, it varies wildly by bank. FWIW, I don't know that having a bank that doesn't play nice with Plaid is a deal-killer. There is a school of thought among many YNAB users that you should not use the auto-import, or even csv/ofx/whatever import, because manually entering transactions takes only a few minutes a day, and gives you much better awareness of your outflows. I can see some merit to that, insofar as tightly controlling your spending is kind of YNAB's whole thing.
- jonjohn84 6y ago
  Even with auto-import, you still have to "approve" each individual transaction that is imported, at which time you can assign it to a category (or approve the auto-suggested category). So that works for me in terms of being aware of spending on a regular basis. And if you manually enter some transactions as you spend, it automatically matches them up with your bank's version of those transactions as you import so you don't end up with duplicates. So it's okay to use it in a hybrid mode where you sometimes enter transactions manually and sometimes wait for them to show up automatically.