Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Budget Blues...

No, not the budget blues you are thinking of!

See.. right in the middle of all the Christmas stuff and medical stuff we've had going on, I got a particularly nasty virus on my laptop.

I stuck out my bottom lip and pouted for a little bit and Brandon went to work texting a friend of ours. 4 hours later, I was awoken by Brandon dropping the laptop on my hip and telling me I owed the Hatfields.. big time.

And in the very next breath, he said that they saved my documents and my pictures to disks, but the computer had to be set back to factory settings.

In my mind, I heard all kinds of alarms going off, but I was just happy to have my beloved piece of technology functioning.

I didn't realize how much I store on my computer. Now I do.

I went through the disks but couldn't find our budget. Insert stomach dropping into big toe. I worked tirelessly on our budget formatting and planning over several years.

It's all gone.

Enter, YNAB (You Need a Budget.) I downloaded the free trial and set to work trying to figure it out, on New Year's Eve night. So romantic, right? Between the video tutorials and the support forum, I found just enough to be dangerous.

But, I had no idea the amount of stuff I'd need to look up to get things tweaked just right.

So... on top of everything else, I've been trying to make our budget right. Some things are lost and will have to be recalculated. (Anyone know how much we typically spend for Easter? Yeah, me either!)

It's annoying, but I really think I like the YNAB method better. Even if I do get a little sad thinking about all that hard work that is now gone.

So... here is the yearly PSA. PLEASE backup your data!

~Stephanie

2 comments:

Erika said...

Hmmm...now I'm intrigued that there could possibly be a BETTER budgeting tool than what I invented myself. :) That hurts my pride a little, haha. But I might have to look into it...

Margery said...

My husband e-mails to himself, so at least it is always in his e-mail to find.