
Chrome Toolkit for YNAB
Game Changer! If you want to control more about how YNAB functions for you, use the Chrome web browser to install the YNAB Toolkit. Go to https://Chrome.google.com/webstore , search for YNAB, and choose Add to Chrome for the Toolkit for YNAB.
This is such a hidden gem and I’m so glad I found it!
Note: This only works on the desktop version of YNAB.
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Now you can find the Toolkit for all the browsers: https://github.com/toolkit-for-ynab/toolkit-for-ynab
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The toolkit adds functionality to YNAB. My favorite feature is it makes each line in the budget look like a bar graph for your goals (see image below).
Here is a list of all of the features: https://github.com/toolkit-for-ynab/toolkit-for-ynab/blob/master/README.md
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YES! I love the extension! I never understood why so many people sang its praise until I downloaded it and played around.
Gray Drum (1d39fb44f280) and Slate Blue Sidewinder (4c70a8ff4fbe) , there are several things I love! I encourage you to download it and check it out!
The number one thing I LOVE about the extension is running balance. I don't understand why YNAB hasn't added this feature back in, and honestly, until I added it on the extension I truly didn't understand what all the hub-bub was about. BUT I LOVE IT! Running balance allows me to see what future transactions will do to my balance. I used this feature to plan out how to pay down my credit card debit. Yes, I also used YNAB's goal feature - set the date a year an a half ahead and dutifully pay how much YNAB says I need to pay for the next 16 months. HOWEVER, with running balance I could then put in all of my future transactions and SEE how paying JUST $*** more per month actually meant I could pay down my credit card significantly faster. Because of this one feature on the extension, I was able to see my debt, plan for it, and then aggressively target it. I paid off $10,500 in 11 months because I could visualize how putting more money to that goal would make a difference over the course of more than a year. The goal feature really just doesn't do that for me...I need to SEE how all the numbers interact.
Other features I LOVE about the extension - it can make the To Be Budgeted orange if you have money left over to be budgeted (a good visual reminder that you have more to budget), you can hide the question mark in the corner, you can hide your referral link on the left side, you can change the colors to high contrast (if you are visually impaired and need this - or color bind), you can blur out your account balances unless you hover over them (awesome in a crowded work space if you are looking at your budget!), customize flag names, change it so the current month is a different color in the header (which limits accidentally budgeting the wrong month), etc.
Really, it lets you customize a lot about YNAB which is great. Do you need to add the extension, nope. Will it possibly let you do one new nifty thing in YNAB that you soon will realize you can't live without? Most likely. Jesse even posted in Reddit recently about how great the extension was. :)
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I'm a very longtime user of YNAB and I'm another person who LOVES the Toolkit feature. I'll echo a few other comments about the running balance, budget to 0 in categories, and the ability for some customization. YNAB is great without the Toolkit, but having some of the added features takes it to the next level. I would definitely recommend installing it. The other thing I really like is that you can turn features on and off to suit your needs.
Thanks again for the group of users who got together and in their spare time created a wonderful tool to add to the use of a product that I love and use like maybe 20 times a day!
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Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, for sharing this loonsy ! I love this extension.
I waited an eternity to switch over to nYNAB because so many of the changes they were making didn't make any sense and I knew they would drive me nuts. (Not being able to see the running account balance or input check book numbers were the two biggest issues for me.) The ability to WAM on the fly eventually won me over but the changes put a serious dent in my enjoyment of the budgeting process. The extension takes care of the majority of things I had issue with. If I had known this existed I would have switched much sooner.
I'm a high school business teacher and teach a personal finance class. I used to plug YNAB every chance that I got but don't feel like I can recommend it anymore with the new version. That might change now. I'll tell my students they have to make sure to get the extension along with it.
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When I logged into YNAB this morning, I got a popup notification that the Toolkit had been updated and a link to follow to see the changes. Clicking on the link, I ended up in a multi-step process to transition over to the new YNAB forums. Now I cannot find any thread that details the most recent changes to the Toolkit. Where can I read up on that? I want to know what has changed. Thanks.