We’re a Spendfulness App Now. We Always Were.

Those of you who keep a dictionary within arm’s reach may have noticed a troubling development across YNAB: we made up a word. (Come at us, Webster!) 

We have only one defense: it doesn’t feel like we made up spendfulness, it feels like we found it.

The story of spendfulness

Twenty years ago, when we were a lil’ baby spreadsheet with four rules, we were sure about one thing: you need a budget. It was the name of our company and the title of Jesse’s book.

Over the years, we built up a wildly unique and supportive community of self-proclaimed YNABers (almost 200,000 on Reddit alone). You might expect to hear them talking about all the ways they saved money: wearing thick sweaters inside their under-heated homes in the winter, lugging 50-pound bags of oats home to feed the family. But restriction is not the vibe.

There’s Carsen and Ulysses who literally had a fairy tale wedding. They dressed as princes straight out of Cinderella, got married at a castle, and invited their guests to wear fairy tale garb. They funded the whole wedding themselves without any debt. They even mentioned YNAB in their vows.

We heard stories that made us pretend we weren’t crying at work: children adopted; dream homes purchased; marriages mended. People wrote to us long, emotional emails about finally breaking generational cycles of debt and money stress.

This was about so much more than saving money.

Jenny, in Northern California, wrote to us:

After my recent divorce, I took my kids into the mountains and we stayed in a yurt for three days. We played games, made s’mores and cooked all our meals there. We even got to stargaze in the wee hours of the morning on the last day – the night sky was spectacular! We made some great memories. 

Jenny could have saved money by staying home for the weekend.  

Christina shared:

I use my money to build the life of my dreams. This spring, I took my daughter to Disneyland for the first time. I saved each month so I could splurge a bit on things like souvenirs and room service. At the end of our first day, as she was falling asleep, she told me, ‘Mom, today was an amazing day.’ Money well spent!

Money can be well spent. And when it is, something profound and powerful ripples throughout your whole life. You may only check in with your plan in YNAB for a few minutes a day, yet you feel more confident and content all the time. Could this be residual budget syndrome?

No. Just no. 

What is spendfulness? 

The epic successes of YNABers weren’t just because they had a budget—just like being a true yogi isn’t about simply owning a yoga mat. It was the YNAB Method that taught people to become radically aware and intentional with their spending. In the process of using YNAB, they discovered a fundamental truth: how you spend your money is, to some degree, how you spend your life.

That’s what spendfulness is all about.

Spendfulness is knowing yourself (your priorities and your circumstances), and spending accordingly. YNABers know themselves because they are in the habit of giving every dollar a job. They make decisions on the regular of how to spend their hard-earned dollars. And because YNABers are so darned intentional with their spending, they end up living really unique and satisfying lives.

Like Eric!

Something old, something new

As Erin, our lead educator says, “We’re not changing anything. We’re just clarifying everything.” We know, from 20 years of experience, that giving every dollar a job is how you can spend your money guilt-free, with no second-guessing.

Yes, we’re using a new word, but we’re still the same YNAB. We’re going to keep teaching people how to be aware and intentional with their spending, completely judgment-free. We are not in the business of shaming people. We believe you are the best person—in all the world!—to decide how to spend your hard-earned dollars. We’ll just provide you with a framework and handsome app to help you live spendfully.

Closing arguments

Money touches almost everything: where we live, how we live, our state of mind and stress levels, when and whether we can retire, and even the food we put in our bellies. How we use our money is one of the fundamental ways we interact with the world. 

We certainly care about earning money. From an early age, it’s impressed upon us to work hard in school to someday get a good job and earn a good income. But our mission at YNAB is to help you care about your money past the point of earning. We want you to care how it gets spent as well—whether it’s on clementines and paper towels at the grocery store today or at a restaurant in Florida, 30 years from now, with friends you haven’t even met yet.

Word wardens, we tried to change the definition of budget. TL;DR: It didn’t work. 

The changes that we’ve experienced from spendfulness are so profound, so long-lasting, and so outside the norm, that we had to find language to express it. We hope you’ll give it a chance, and see how good it feels.

Spendfulness has changed millions of lives already—we just didn’t have a word for it until now. Experience it for yourself with a free 34-day trial of YNAB.