YNAB For Beginners - Updated Start Guide (2022)

A step-by-step guide with EVERYTHING you need to get started with YNAB. This YNAB tutorial will walk you through every single detail of setting up your budget and getting ahead with the app.

While I love YNAB, unfortunately, it can be pretty confusing. A lot of people will sign up only to get quickly frustrated and then give up never to return. I admit, YNAB definitely has a bit of a learning curve at first. But that's what this video is for.

I'm going to walk you through everything you need to know about 'You Need A Budget'.

In this video I'll cover:
0:00 - Intro
0:19 - Two things before starting
1:26 - Creating A Budget
2:00 - Setting Up Accounts
9:19 - Ready To Assign
10:43 - Category Structure
20:53 - Setting Targets
29:31 - Underfunded & Income
31:00 - Different Paycheck Cycles
33:00 - Assigned, Activity, Available Columns
35:30 - Assigning Your Dollars
40:20 - Why you can't assign future dollars
42:40 - Colors in YNAB
43:50 - Daily Routine
48:44 - Credit Cards In YNAB
51:50 - Weekly Routine
53:45 - Monthly Routine

This tutorial truly is everything you need to know. I hope you learn something and be sure to leave a comment with any questions you have.
______________________________________________

[mappedoutmoney]

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
0:19 - Two things before starting
1:26 - Creating A Budget
2:00 - Setting Up Accounts
9:19 - Ready To Assign
10:43 - Category Structure
20:53 - Setting Targets
29:31 - Underfunded & Income
31:00 - Different Paycheck Cycles
33:00 - Assigned, Activity, Available Columns
35:30 - Assigning Your Dollars
40:20 - Why you can't assign future dollars
42:40 - Colors in YNAB
43:50 - Daily Routine
48:44 - Credit Cards In YNAB
51:50 - Weekly Routine
53:45 - Monthly Routine

[freya]

You probably don’t remember me. I came to you in 2019 desperate with huge amounts of debt (£38k). I’m happy to report that I will be debt free in 2023 :)

[amyelynch]

I think it’s funny how many of us are not beginners, but enjoy your videos and are happily watching anyway. I was so happy to see this notification pop up!

[YNABofficial]

Great video, Nick! Thanks for helping so many YNABers everywhere! ~BenB

[drummyboop]

❤loved loved loved this video. Straight to the point, well explained, very efficient. Thank you a million for all this precious information. 🙏🏾

[mikebilek]

Excellent video breaking down everything!! I'm going crazy trying to set up my first YNAB budget and you're insight is making it much more manageable!

[Sunny]

Wow. This was a terrific video. Thank you so much! I'm brand new to YNAB, and I followed your video just now to set up my first YNAB budget.

[carolinesanchez]

Wow thank you SO much for this great beginner tutorial! Just got it all set up and you made it so clear and easy. I used to do this all manually in excel. Can't believe I didn't know about YNAB sooner. Thanks. Off to watch all your videos :)

[joyeakodu]

This is a goldmine. Thank you for taking the time to create the video series on this. I finally feel like I have hope to actually live by a budget.

[MarieZh]

This was very detailed and helpful. Thank you for sharing!

[chops]

Thanks much this was so helpful and you are an excellent teacher.

[caseymoser]

THANK YOU for this!! New to YNAB and this is 100x better than all the YNAB videos I tried watching to learn.

[emoryneely]

Wow, what an incredibly helpful video. Now I'm actually excited to start budgeting!

[michael_harren]

THANK YOU! For this video - super helpful as I am getting things rolling with rethinking my budget!

[angelman]

Just joined YNAB, and found this video extremely helpful as I get started. Thank you!!

[dustinhxc]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! You are extremely efficient at explaining this program!

[heathers.]

FANTASTIC video! I can't thank you enough for taking the time to create this content for us new YNAB users. Great job! So very helpful!

[jel]

Awesome thank you, i used to use ynab years ago, but due to having to manually import all transacitions in the uk, moved away from it, with uk banks now supported trying it again and your video was a great refresher and explained clearly what i want to achieve without having to read lots of material thank you so much !

[bretkennedy]

Hi Nick, I just started wtih YNAB again and this has been super helpful.

[tkoillusion]

Now I love YNAB! Was about to go to another product. Thank you for this tutorial.