Adding budgets for my kids and want to password protect my budget
Hi all and Happy New Year. I want to add budgets for each of my kids so they can start learning to budget their own money, but I don't want them to be able to see my personal budget. Is there any way to keep them from seeing my budget?
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As far as I know, there's no way to password protect separate budgets within YNAB. You could get them their own account, or you could try working with them on the budget under supervision?
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I have a budget for each of my kids, and I just look over it with them. I don't give them access to it fully, just under supervision, like CornFlower mentioned. In fact, for the first bit, at least, as you're teaching them, it's better to be there when they're doing their budget, so you can teach them, and help them understand how to use the features.
I understand your desire to have a password, and I agree that it would be nice. You can put in a feature request. I certainly would use a password for protecting my budget if it were available, but for now, I only give them access while I'm around.
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I just started my 16 yr old on his YNAB lessons a couple months ago, having had the same concern for years. All I can tell you is I put the freaken fear of GOD into him that if he looks or touches one single digit I will know and he will be dog meat.
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Annieland Ha, yeah used to be kids were taught don't steal money from parent's wallets. I don't see this as being any different.
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dakinemaui For me it would be more about privacy. I think its fair to say you don't want to share *every aspect* of your budget with your kids.
Has anyone put in a feature request?
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Annieland bwahahaha. Love this.
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This is something I've been wanting for a while as well. Everyone who wants this feature needs to submit a feature request. If they get enough requests perhaps we'll get it. ;)
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I don't think YNAB will ever do this. We have been requesting this since the online version started. They don't want to do it because they want you to buy additional accounts for your kids.
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JollyB exactly, it will simply lead to multiple randoms sharing a ynab account.
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SgtBatten I actually disagree that people will treat YNAB like Netflix, but this is what YNAB thinks.
YNAB isn’t like Netflix: I think most people would be unwilling to share their account with friends. People wouldn’t want even the possibility of their friends (and even their family) knowing their finances).
YNAB could come up with some limits to allow parents to share with (and teach) their kids.
The point they are missing is that they would have built in future customers.
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JollyB If each budget is password protected it absolutely will. People could share an account right now already and that is the situation you describe with people being able to see others finances.
My kid is a baby right now but I don't have any issue with him seeing my finances when he's older. Why would I hide that aspect of life from him? There will be an age where he can comprehend it and before that lots of annoying questions no doubt, but it is our families finances, not mine. I don't understand this concern though i do recognise it is very frequently mentioned here so i must be a minority in that view.
I do agree that YNAB could find a way to limit access in some way, a pin code once per session before changes could be made for example.
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Completely agree with Lavender, password protection of individual budgets is an essential feature, yet YNAB has no interest in implementing it. My kid is a year away from going to college; would love to take the time to teach him money management, but reluctant to do so in YNAB for privacy reasons. Will be looking elsewhere and get him started with a software package / service that works better for us.
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Thanks for letting us know you'd find this to be an important feature, Tomato Captain ! Since your kid is close to college age, I'm emailing you directly with more info regarding our College Program.
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Marisa have you all considered extending it to high schoolers too? If not, I request that you do :-)
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I just put in for a feature request. Like to see this as well to protect each budget. If they are worried about people sharing then they could have a family plan or make it where x budgets cost this in an account. Don't know. They could maybe also create a Kids/Teens version of YNAB that limits number of categories, accounts, etc No auto download of bank transactions to teach them to manually enter in the transactions. They could cripple it where it is useful for 2 or 3 accounts. So many things they could do that would still be good enough for a teen and I help them learn budgeting.
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mdmangus Thanks for adding your voice!
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mdmangus I think the family plan is a good idea, with a certain number of user accounts available in a household.
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I may do what Bruce is doing and set one up for my son and go over it with him. He's a teenager , so I want him to learn more about organizing his money and priorities.
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One of Hannah's recent videos made me hopeful that YNAB is working on a feature to facilitate this sort of thing! I'm assuming it would come after the debt management stuff, since that's in the "Up Next" list, but maybe they'll surprise us! Partner/family budgeting features seem to have been requested often over the years, so I think a lot of people would be really excited to see some movement here.
8 YNAB Updates You Don't Want to Miss (8:50)
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tekgy That allusion was not by mistake, and you're right - keeping an eye out on the Up Next page is the way to go! 😊
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I would LOVE to see a feauture that would allow me as a parent help my children, who will be minors for another 6+ years, teach the YNAB-basics.
I’m pretty sure this will be good voor YNAB-business in the long term 😋, with kids getting hooked on YNAB bf they are out on their financial own.
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I am also trying to create their own budgets without them seeing ours. No way to protect it but I saw they are offering college students FREE YNAB. I get it, get them hooked and they will continue. Why not start earlier and get the high schoolers on it especially if the parents are already paying for a subscription.
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Kevin Blaser I hear you! The earlier, the better. Thanks for letting us know you'd find this helpful. 😊
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