YNAB expects you to put your money into budgets based on whatever money comes in. But that's not how Firefly III works. Firefly III works the other way around. At the start of the month, you decide what you want to spend. If everything is OK, your budget should at least match what you earn. So that's easy. But if everything is better than OK, you budget less than you make, and you save the rest. You can use the rest of the money to fill piggy banks or donate to me (kidding ;)).

Contrary, zero based budgeting keeps the focus on your paychecks and forces you to divide it over your budgets. Your primary driver becomes how much money you make and not how much money you spend. This is an important distinction.

Here's the important part: your budget is not static. It's not something you set and forget. Maybe you check in and realize your food budget is busted because you hosted a dinner party. No problem — just move money from somewhere else to cover it. Maybe when the next month starts, you see that your budget didn't really work. Make a new budget based off what you learned!

We find the best way to track your money is rooted in something called envelope budgeting. Instead of predicting how much you'll make and spend and trying to reconcile that with what actually happened, envelope budgeting embraces real income as the source of your budget instead. This means you can only budget money that you already have. You can think of categories as little funds that you deposit money into. Combined with our rollover system, it provides an intuitive way to handle a lot of things that come up in life. And you know it's always accurately depicting your finances — there's no made up numbers.

With a zero-based budget, you’re giving every single dollar a job on purpose. It’s hands down the best way to take control of your money and feel confident every time you spend.