
Just entered Early Retirement?
Well I’ve been using YNAB for just over a week now; it’s coincides with my early retirement actually. I’m an experienced budgeter (I thought) but wanted a better tool to track the ‘drawn down’ phase of our wealth management (vs the ‘accumulation phase when your striving for early retirement and/or financial independence #FIRE). Well, I was pleasantly surprised at how simple and fast this tool is to use - once set up - yet, how it provides psychological improvement even for a budgeting pro. Great job YNAB; I have NO DOUBT that had I started to used it earlier, I would have started my self-funded early retirement much quicker.
For Newbies to budgeting (or for those just wanting to get a handle on bad debt), don’t let yourself feel discouraged - it’s worth the effort and YNAB makes budgeting a breeze. The tracking that it will show you will be a 2nd benefit; such is the power of the immediate budget improvements you’ll experience. Dive in folks - the sooner the better!
(I’m looking forward to my first monthly reconciliation process in 2 week time and expect to be even more dazzled 🤩 - I can feel it in my ‘waters’)
-
Congratulations and welcome to YNAB! I’ve been using this budgeting system for over 10 years and it turned my financial life around. I really don’t think there’s a better method of budgeting. It’s going to give me the option to retire early for sure. I’ll definitely be waiting as late as possible to take my social security to maximize its benefits.
-
I look forward to hearing how you use it for draw down in retirement. I suppose it’s very similar to the accumulation phase other than the source of the income and how much more control you have of that income. Also, I’d imagine you’d have less savings type categories other than your true expenses such as property tax.
-
Welcome to the forum, and YNAB NettieFIRE ! Congratulations on your early retirement. I love that you're seeing improvements following the YNAB Method, even as an experienced budgeter.
Looking forward to hearing more about how things progress! We have a Journals section too, if that's something you'd be interested in. -
Glad to see you're happy. But this made me shudder:
NettieFIRE said:
I’m looking forward to my first monthly reconciliation process in 2 week time and expect to be even more dazzled 🤩YNAB doesn't reconcile to statements. It reconciles to the now and then. It is highly recommended to reconcile often so you have fewer transactions to filter through if something is wrong. A lot of people do it more than once a week. It takes about 5 seconds if done at the same time as checking for any missing transactions in YNAB from your bank accounts.