How Two People Fell in Love Thanks to Budgeting

Adrianna and Nico often joke that they’re a cliche rom-com story: “single guy no kids meets crazy single mom of five and a budgeting app brings them together.” They’ve been dating for a year now and when they said they met through YNAB, we had to learn more. We talked to Adrianna to hear the whole story…

Adrianna and Nico: How We Met

I had gone through a divorce and when I started dating again, I was surprised to learn it all happened online. Online dating was (and is) super awkward and weird! One night, I just dove in and put together my profile. It was ridiculous—I think I put “has a Costco card. Likes pizza. Owns my own vehicle. If you YNAB, I’m a sure thing.”

I figured, hey why not include YNAB? Worst-case scenario, people use my link and I get a free month.

Well, I matched with someone and they sent me a message. It was screenshots of their YNAB reports dating back a few years and it said, “So you’re a sure thing, right?”

And that’s how I met Nico.

You Could Say it Got Serious

We’re pretty different: he’s younger, doesn’t have kids, earlier in his divorce process. He was still dealing with lawyers and fees, so we got to talking about using Undebt.it and snowballing to deal with debt from divorce. I even introduced him to the YNAB Fans Facebook group.

On our first official date, we went out to dinner and immediately clicked and connected—we didn’t talk about budgeting once.

Fast forward to now—it’s a year later, and you could say it got serious. Nico moved in with me and my five kids (19-year-old, twin 16-year-olds, 12-year-old, and 11-year-old). It’s been wild—my kids are all huge personalities, but it’s been a blast.

I don’t know how I ever landed Nico—he’s amazing. We never would’ve socialized, we never would’ve gone on a date—he wasn’t looking for kids. The only reason we matched was because I thought he was attractive and YNAB was a fun joke. I legitimately met him because of YNAB.

Adrianna’s Money Story

In my last relationship, I got married at 19. We were broke and lived paycheck to paycheck. Anytime we would try to talk about money, we would both go on the defensive.

Our relationship unraveled, and I knew I needed to end it. I was planning my exit, and that’s when I realized I had to get my financial life in order.

Around that time, a friend of mine was living and working in Dubai and she credited YNAB with allowing her to pick up, move, and go after this dream job. I decided to give it a try: if it helped her, maybe it could help me too.

I went down the budgeting rabbit hole—watched every tutorial and I read everything. I’d live off my first paycheck and the rest went to debt pay-off. I only had eight categories—it was just the essentials and my debt. By this time, I had left my husband and was making it work on my own.

In the area I’m in, everyone works in oil and gas. That means everyone has good salaries and the toys, trucks, and boats to match. They’re financed out the teeth, and that mindset was really hard to combat. I had to parent myself and say no to a lot of things I wanted, a lot of things I could “afford” on my salary, and a lot of things I saw other people having.

I focused hard and paid off $40,000 of debt. Then I paid the $12,000 of legal fees from the divorce in cash. I even paid my husband’s legal fees. YNAB helped navigate all of this, and I’m now totally free of consumer debt. It’s really a mental shift to wrap my mind around.

A New Approach to Money Together

Now, with Nico, we talk openly and honestly about money. It’s nice—it’s really nice. Finances were an issue in both of our past relationships. We’ll never have joint bank accounts. We keep our finances quite separate, but we share a YNAB budget. The first category we set up together was for a hot springs vacation.

In our day-to-day life, I keep him motivated to pay off his debt, and he keeps me accountable when I want a random splurge. The other day we were out shopping and there was a sale on a new GoPro. We had a category set up to buy one but it wasn’t fully funded yet. I was like, “Let’s just do it! We can put it on a credit card.” He was like, “No, we don’t do that.” What a shift!

We talk openly and honestly about money. It’s nice—it’s really nice

Every Friday night we have a date night. We love sushi. He’s from the coast but we live in the prairies of Canada. Our favorite date is to go out for bad sushi. It’s not bad, it’s just nothing special. At the beginning of the date we’ll just start and do YNAB to reconcile our accounts.

Our second date was on Valentine’s day, so we take that as our one-year anniversary. We’re probably going to rent some snowshoes and go snowshoeing. It will probably be miserable but we’ll have fun.

It’s been a heck of a year together and we’re so happy a thing like YNAB could actually be what brought us together. More importantly we’ve had an amazing first year because finances are not a stressor.

For anyone else looking for budgeting love, check out the YNAB Singles group on Facebook. Nothing says TOTAL BABE like a financial life in order.