Budget Peace of Mind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You guys know me and money. It makes me so stressed and my instincts are to hang on tight to money and never spend any. I know how to penny pinch and I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Budget Peace of Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You guys know me and money. It makes me so stressed and my instincts are to hang on tight to money and never spend any. I know how to penny pinch and I\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The White Hindu\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-23T10:09:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-14T02:31:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/317\/2014\/06\/ynab-example1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ambaa Choate\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ambaa Choate\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/\",\"name\":\"Budget Peace of Mind\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-06-23T10:09:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-03-14T02:31:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#\/schema\/person\/2444b196e56ca64da3c3a54965312ef1\"},\"description\":\"You guys know me and money. It makes me so stressed and my instincts are to hang on tight to money and never spend any. I know how to penny pinch and I\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Budget Peace of Mind\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/\",\"name\":\"The White Hindu\",\"description\":\"The journey of an American convert to Hinduism.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#\/schema\/person\/2444b196e56ca64da3c3a54965312ef1\",\"name\":\"Ambaa Choate\",\"description\":\"Ambaa is an American woman of European ancestry who is also a practicing Hindu. She is fascinated with questions of philosophy, culture, and the meaning of life. Join her in the journey to explore how a non-Indian convert to Hinduism experiences her religion.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/author\/whitehindu\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Budget Peace of Mind","description":"You guys know me and money. It makes me so stressed and my instincts are to hang on tight to money and never spend any. I know how to penny pinch and I","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Budget Peace of Mind","og_description":"You guys know me and money. It makes me so stressed and my instincts are to hang on tight to money and never spend any. I know how to penny pinch and I","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/","og_site_name":"The White Hindu","article_published_time":"2014-06-23T10:09:08+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-03-14T02:31:29+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":576,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/317\/2014\/06\/ynab-example1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Ambaa Choate","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ambaa Choate","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/","name":"Budget Peace of Mind","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-06-23T10:09:08+00:00","dateModified":"2015-03-14T02:31:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#\/schema\/person\/2444b196e56ca64da3c3a54965312ef1"},"description":"You guys know me and money. It makes me so stressed and my instincts are to hang on tight to money and never spend any. I know how to penny pinch and I","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Budget Peace of Mind"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/","name":"The White Hindu","description":"The journey of an American convert to Hinduism.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/#\/schema\/person\/2444b196e56ca64da3c3a54965312ef1","name":"Ambaa Choate","description":"Ambaa is an American woman of European ancestry who is also a practicing Hindu. She is fascinated with questions of philosophy, culture, and the meaning of life. Join her in the journey to explore how a non-Indian convert to Hinduism experiences her religion.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/author\/whitehindu\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":5191,"date":"2014-06-23T06:09:08","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T10:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/?p=5191"},"modified":"2015-03-13T22:31:29","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T02:31:29","slug":"budget-peace-of-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whitehindu\/2014\/06\/budget-peace-of-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget Peace of Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

You guys know me and money<\/a>. It makes me so stressed and my instincts are to hang on tight to money and never spend any. I know how to penny pinch and I coupon at the grocery store. Even if we have money in the bank account, I\u2019m never sure if we really have enough and so I make my husband not buy the potato chips he wants. I\u2019m very stingy. My default answer to can we go to the movies<\/em> is no<\/em> because I just don\u2019t spend. Ever.<\/p>\n

But I just found out about a budgeting software that can actually make me relax and know exactly how much I have to spend on each thing we need or want. I had to share it with you guys even if it\u2019s a little off topic!<\/p>\n

Before I found it the problem with my budgeting was I create a budget based on what I think I\u2019ll get paid and we inevitably go over somewhere and I feel panicked. I also have inconsistent income, so it\u2019s really hard to plan.<\/p>\n

YNAB<\/a> (You Need A Budget) is a brilliant program that\u2019s been around for a little while, yet I\u2019d never heard of it before.<\/p>\n

It does two things differently that are extremely helpful to me:<\/strong> It clearly connects your spending and your income so it\u2019s easy to compensate if you go over budget in one area, and it transitions you to working from last month\u2019s income, so you\u2019re paying this month\u2019s bills with money you already earned last month and is already in your account.<\/p>\n

Even before you get to that point, it\u2019s really easy to see where each paycheck is going and exactly how much you have.<\/p>\n

I love it! It\u2019s making me so much more relaxed because I know exactly how much we have in the account for the electric bill, which means that when Brad wants to buy work clothes, I know that we have enough for that!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s kind of like the envelope system except you don\u2019t have to do it in piles of cash.<\/strong> You have the \u201cenvelopes\u201d on the software and you can watch savings grow in each category. It\u2019s easy to plan for once a year bills too.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what it looks like (yes, you can get a little peek at our finances. The large balance amount includes a chunk of money in long term savings towards a house down payment):<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

So what happens is you put the amount of money you have in your account page (number 1 above) and then it shows up as \u201cavailable to budget\u201d (number 2 above). You add all that money to your categories (in the first column) until \u201cavailable to budget\u201d is empty. That way every single penny of your money is accounted for and doing something!\u00a0<\/strong>Notice how with my categories, I\u2019ve put the day of the month when that bill comes so I know I need money for the beginning of the month bills first and prioritize that. (This picture is for the second half of June, so the rent has already come out as well as some of the other bills and I\u2019ve started putting more money into those accounts for next month).<\/p>\n

When you spend money you put that transaction on the account page (number 1 above) and it shows up in the second column. Then you can see in the third column how much you have left. The third column is the \u201cenvelope\u201d and whatever money you don\u2019t spend one month carries over to the next (see the circled above).<\/p>\n

Eventually you get to a point where you\u2019re putting the money coming in this month into the \u201cavailable to budget\u201d for next month. That way you\u2019ll be spending money that you already have and you won\u2019t have to speculate or guess.<\/strong> I haven\u2019t reached that point yet!<\/p>\n

Their software really helps you save up for what you want too because you can clearly see where your money is going and you can make choices based on what\u2019s most important to you.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a thirty day free trial and I highly recommend giving it a try. Also, watch the getting started video and sign up for the free classes. I\u2019ve taken two of them so far.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019re ready to buy the full version, come back here and buy through<\/strong> my referral link<\/a>. You\u2019ll get $6 off the one time $60 fee and I\u2019ll get $6 for referring you! I bought it through someone else\u2019s link because I love saving money, even when it\u2019s just $6! (I\u2019m not sure but I think it is still downloadable for people outside the U.S. and those prices should adjust for your currency).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"