Started The Mortgage Payoff Club in 2015 after being inspired by Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover", Elizabeth Warren's "All Your Worth", and the blog Budgets are Sexy. Life got in the way and I haven't been able to be as aggressive as I'd like in paying it off over the years but a total of over $29,000 has been paid down so far and I've saved $37k in interest. If I continue at my current payoff rate my estimated payoff date is 2/1/2029. I'm going to try and get that lower. (original payoff date was 6/1/2042!!)
But yes it is. They can't be perfect all the time. I'm sorry Jesse and the YNAB team... but there is one glaringly HUGE FLAW in the default YNAB budgeting categories.
The default budgeting category groups and categories are the following:
- Immediate Obligations
- Rent/Mortgage
- Electric
- Water
- Internet
- Groceries
- Transportation
- Interest & Fees
- True Expenses
- Auto Maintenance
- Home Maintenance
- Renter's/Home Insurance
- Medical
- Clothing
- Gifts
- Giving
- Computer Replacement
- Software Subscriptions
- Stuff I Forgot to Budget For
- Debt Payments
- Student Loan
- Auto Loan
- Quality of Life Goals
- Vacation
- Fitness
- Education
- Just for Fun
- Dining Out
- Gaming
- Music
- Fun Money
SAVINGS! That's right! There's NO SAVINGS above.
No Retirement Savings, No General Investing, no Mortgage Principal Pre-Payment, no College Savings.... COME ONE YNAB!?!?
Savings is one of the entire reasons for budgeting! People in the United States are chronically not saving enough for retirement. Savings, Retirement, Emergency Fund, etc should be DEFAULT categorits under a master Savings Category Group to get people thinking about doing it if they aren't already.
Now I know people can edit it and add budgeting categories to their hearts content (and I have a great suggestion for how to that here) but Retirement Savings and Emergency Fund should be a default option in YNAB.
Ok. Rant over. You may now resume your normal activities.
