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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.

Featured Articles

Living Within Your Means

It seems like the golden rule of personal finance is to "live within your means." This seems simple enough, so why don't more people do it?

All articles by

Jesse

Understanding Your True Expenses (The Power of Rule Two)

This is Rule Two: Embrace Your True Expenses. Break up that larger, less-frequent expense into month-size chunks that you can manage.

What’s the Difference Between Budget vs. Bank Account?

YNAB let's you see your money from two different angles—in your bank accounts or in your budget. Same money, different organization.

Are You Doing Allowance All Wrong?

If you are anything like me, and mildly freaked out about spoiling your six kids, you are going to love this.

Rainy Day Funds: What Are They and Do You Need Them?

Wondering what a rainy day fund is? We'll explain what rainy day funds are and why you need 'em in this post.

What Does an Ideal Budget Look Like?

If you're wondering what an ideal budget looks like, we've got you covered. I've been budgeting for years. Here's what my budget looks like!

YNAB Credit Card Handling: New & Improved

Based on feedback and testing, we’ve made some tweaks to improve the way that YNAB handles credit cards. Jesses explains ...

What Is The Point Of A Tracking Account?

Why we have Tracking Accounts and how it could give you a leg up financially

YNAB Starting Over: 3 Ways to Restart Your Budget

Slip-ups happen, but they're totally fixable. We even built a software feature to help you start over. Skip the guilt and let's go!

Manage Payees

Now you can select all of those Amazon derivatives and combine them into one pretty little payee name (we suggest “Amazon”) ...

Maximize Your Wealth In 4 Hours Per Year

Want to invest like a pro? Diversify across the entire market, invest regularly, and then don’t worry about it. Check out some resources.

The Investing Series: Rate of Return

Welcome to another Whiteboard Wednesday! This week we continue with our super-special series about investing.

You Don’t Have to Be a Genius to Invest Like a Pro

This is Part 2 of an extra-special Whiteboard Wednesday series where I’ll walk you through the basics of investing. If you missed Part 1, click here to go watch that now. And you read that right—You don’t have to be a genius to invest better than most pros.