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Jesse Mecham

YNAB Founder

Jesse Mecham is a personal finance expert, speaker, business leader, and the Founder of You Need A Budget (or YNAB if you are very busy and important). Jesse hosts The Jesse Mecham Show, and is the Wall Street Journal best-selling author of book You Need A Budget. (He’s nothing if not consistent!) A self-proclaimed “recovering CPA,” he is deeply passionate about teaching individuals, families, and business owners the YNAB Method so they can gain total control of their money. 

Jesse first developed the YNAB method as a broke, newly married college student who really needed a budget. In an attempt to make an additional $300/month to cover rent, he sold his budgeting spreadsheet online and YNAB was born. Since 2004, the software has grown into a leading personal finance platform and has helped hundreds of thousands of people break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, get out of debt, and save more money. Now, YNAB has a growing team living and working all around the world, and has built a thriving remote culture that earned recognition as Fortune’s #1 best small company to work for (YNAB was doing remote work before it was cool!). When not teaching people how to budget, Jesse loves gardening, woodworking, marksmanship, and travel. He also spends a good bit of time with his wife and the seven small people that live in their house.

All articles by

Jesse

Could Generics Save You 30% in Your Grocery Budget?

Hello Fellow Savers! After I graduated from high school I worked part-time for a health food store called Arizona Health Foods.  AZHF had their own line of supplements consisting of multivitamins, all the vitamins and minerals, CoQ10, digestive enzymes, glucosamine, etc.

4 Myths About Charitable Giving

In thinking about becoming the boss of your money, the subject of charitable giving just doesn’t go away. Check out these myths about giving.

The One Secret to Money in Marriage

I’ve seen what budgeting can do for relationships. Sit down every month and give every dollar a job TOGETHER and it will put your finances back on track.

How We Manage Our Finances

One takeaway I got from some 150 credit hours of accounting? Keep things simple. Here's how Julie and I have our finances set up.

10 Tips To Keep in Mind During the Home Buying Process

We are about a year and a half removed from our first home buying experience.

How You Never Get Anything Done (But Do it Perfectly!)

Jonathan over at MyMoneyBlog had a great article about how the concept of Kaizen ties in to personal finance. According to Wikipedia: a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life.

Living Within Your Means and Luck

Your ability to take advantage of opportunities that come your way is directly related to your flexility with your finances.

Budgeting: Important Questions Needing Answers

Three important questions to ask yourself as you build your budget that will set you up for financial success.

Learn How Living on a Budget is Peace

Peace comes from aligning your money with your goals. It comes from the decision to have your money do what you actually want it to do.

Bargain Grocery Shopping

Learn what you buy, figure out a “good deal” on those items, plan around the sale items, and don’t think Wal-Mart is the cheapest.

The Automatic Millionaire Strategy and YNAB

As many readers probably already know, we’re now a “working” family and no longer part of the student life that we grew to love over the past several years. I’ve recently written about the change to expenses that can happen with income rising even a little bit.

Waiting for the Perfect Month? Just Keep on Waiting

The normal month is the month where an unbelievable amount of unexpected things culminate and knock you financially off balance.