Quicken Versus YNAB

The You Need a Budget (YNAB) website has a page that compares its product to Quicken. In particular, here's what they say are the advantages of their software versus that of the "Big Q":

• Save More Money -- People following the You Need A Budget (YNAB) Methodology save, on average $235 in their first 31 days. Quicken would rather embed advertisements in their software to get you to spend more.

• No Costly Upgrades -- YNAB has never once charged for an upgrade. Quicken forces you to upgrade by crippling your software after a certain period of time.

• Software that’s Easy to Use -- Quicken is full of “bells and whistles” that you pay for, but they then sit and gather dust. Also, these extra useless features simply cause confusion and frustration. YNAB is built to have you focus on those things that actually bring results.

• Community and Support -- With Quicken you’ll get the standard corporate canned responses to emails, waiting in line in support queues, etc. With YNAB we offer free weekly coaching in a small class environment, and we have the friendliest forums on the internet. If you email us, an actual person responds!

They also include some quotes from people who used to use Quicken and now use YNAB. As you might expect, those people LOVE YNAB. ;-)

I've used Quicken for years and use a self-developed spreadsheet for budgeting. I have never used YNAB but have had many, many, many people say how much they like it.

Here's my take on what YNAB says above:

1. They kind of by-pass the issue of how much Quicken saves their users in the first 31 days, so I can't really comment on this. It could be more than $235 or it could be less, but they don't include that number. Instead, they focus on something unrelated, those annoying "ads" where Quicken asks you to buy something (which are easily ignored, BTW.)

2. It's true that you eventually need to upgrade Quicken as they phase out older versions. I upgrade every two to three years anyway, but it isn't cheap to do so.

3. I agree 100% that Quicken has a lot of bells and whistles that go unused. I basically use it for recording check, credit card, and cash transactions as well as updating stock performance. I also run reports regularly to get various data sorted the way I want it. I'd say I use about 10% of Quicken's abilities (simply a guess on my part) since I know it does so much more (but stuff I really don't need.) I wonder how much of its capabilities the average user uses.

4. Doesn't Quicken have forums for answers? I've never really needed support for it, so I can't say if it's good or bad.

In the end, I have so much historical data with Quicken that I'm "stuck with it." To switch now to a new system could be a big data headache or loss of information. Furthermore, I'm comfortable with it. It does what I want and gives me the data I want. So why would I want to switch to a new system? Maybe if I was starting from ground zero I'd look at other options, but I'm generally happy with it and don't feel it's worth it to switch.

How about you? Do you use either of these pieces of software? If so, which one and why?

(FYI, a comparison between Mint and YNAB is coming up soon.)

Comments

[Margaret]

Most people that previously used Quicken (including me) realize quickly that YNAB is the best Budgeting Software ever! Quicken's budget features are not good-they only allow tracking what you have already spent. YNAB is planning in advance of spending and gaining control of your money. Trus, YNAB needs better reports but they are coming soon.
If you want a free way to track investments, try GNUCASH. It helps to have an accounting background but it's really not necessary. I no longer use Quicken at all.

[PK]

I love YNAB.
YNAB is a spending plan application, while most other programs are just expense tracking. Also keep in mine that YNAB is a thought process and mentality more than it is a program. You could just as easily join the forums, never buy the program, and make up your own spreadsheet and still be using YNAB.

[David]

While it is still a bit buggy at times, Mint.com is a great FREE website. It does suffer a bit from being better at tracking your expenses than helping you budget, it does have a budgeting feature. And, again, it is free.

[bank fiesta]

If you have... How do you like it? How long have you used it? Do you recommend it? Where did you get it? It lists for $49.95. Did you find it cheaper than that?

My family needs to budget our home finances. I have read that this is a good software for doing so.

[AnEngineeredLife]

I use Quicken and one of my favorite features was introduced with Quicken 2008 I think. It is called My Savings Plan. I had looked extensively at YNAB and other envelope budget systems, but I wanted a system that had the investment tracking features of Quicken along with calculation of net worth. Also I don't want to have to be keeping track of my financial life on two different pieces of software. Not all of my accounts link up with Mint so that was out of the picture.
So what is this My Savings Plan feature in Quicken? It is actually a very handy envelope budgeting system. My method is to total up my earnings for the month at the end of each month and set that as my budget for the next month. I then distribute that amount to my various budget and savings categories and Quicken tracks it all from there as I go, so I always know how much I have left to spend in a given month.
While I am sure systems like YNAB are handy I have become very comfortable with Quicken over the years and enjoy many of its features that YNAB doesn't have. Like FMF I have tons of historical data in Quicken that I don't want to lose now, plus I only upgrade every 3-4 years.

[FMF]

Bank --

I bought it initially and updated a few times on my own (can't remember where I bought it or how much.) Nowadays I can get a copy for free (I know people.) ;-)

[Recycleholic]

I am still using Quicken 2001 and it does just fine. Granted it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the latter versions but for keeping basic tabs on my accounts it's all I need.

I will admit over the years I have been updating Quicken less and less now that sites like Mint have come along. This along with my Excel spreadsheet that keeps tabs on all my accounts I don't find the need to upgrade.

[CoolHappyGuy]

I have been a loyal Quicken user since about '96. It's got great features but it takes me a lot of time to enter data. Right now I am using Quicken 2004.

I agree that the budgeting feature in Quicken is pretty useless. I have been using the "Savings Goals" feature to approximate an envelope methodology with some success. Still, it's pretty time consuming.

I like Mint. However, while automatic, it really doesn't allow you to pre-plan your expenses. Still, it's a great tool to monitor your finances in one place with minimal data entry.

I am experimenting with using YNAB methodology using my current Quicken/Mint setup. I agree with the reader that you don't necessarily need the software to utilize YNAB.

Has anybody out there tried GNUCash? It's an open source alternative to Quicken/Quickbooks. It's free and it allows QIF (Quicken) imports. Could this be a tool that will enable us long-time Quicken users to migrate to something else without losing our hard-earned Quicken history? (For more info visit gnucash.org.)

[Tim]

Started using Yodlee four months ago. Free, and it auto downloads all my transactions, sends me a weekly report of my spending vs by budget in each category, with alerts if I go over in a category. I looked at YNAB, the only thing I saw it had over Yodlee was that you could track a category across months, i.e. if you went over one month and under the next, it took that into account. Yodlee just starts over every month. To me, that wasn't worth the cost to buy YNAB and change systems, though at some point it might.

[Adam]

I'm a dedicated YNAB user. Judging by the ratings for YNAB Pro on Amazon it seems I'm not the only very satisfied customer. I think it's easy to use and it also is better at helping you see the big picture and plan for expenses in advance. Most other programs like Quicken, Money or Mint only give you the play by play, i.e. get paid, pay the bills, balance the checkbook. With YNAB you're always ahead of the game and budgeting is much easier, especially for those with variable incomes. It all comes down to which concept works best for you. If you like to plan and have a buffer YNAB is clearly better for you.

[Trevor LeDain]

Why does it have to be one or the other? I use both. I admit Quicken works great to keep track of expenses, earnings, and makes tax season less of a hassle, but it's useless for budgeting. I use YNAB for that and it's incredible. They complement each other extremely well. It would be great to have one program that combines the strengths of these two apps, but I yet to find one. Until then, YNAB and Quicken live side by side on my dock.

[Kris]

This question is for Trevor LeDain: YNAB, Mint and Quicken all seem to have attractive features and I am considering setting up and using all tree simulateously. How difficult and how time cosuming is it for you to use two systems at once? Do you spend a lot of time putting data in? Any advice?