Meet Jesse
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Jesse Mecham is the founder of the beloved money app YNAB, a New York Times bestselling author, and host of the top-rated podcast The Jesse Mecham Show. In 2004, YNAB began as a humble spreadsheet to keep Jesse’s young marriage financially afloat and has since grown into a movement—one that's helped millions of people get good at money and never worry about money again.
Today, Jesse is a leading personal finance expert trusted by WIRED, Fortune, Good Morning America, and The New York Times for his unique ability to transform how people relate to their money. He lives in Utah with his wife Julie and their children where he practices what he preaches—embracing a life full of purpose, woodworking, and the occasional donut.
Never Worry About Money Again
Nobody is born knowing how to spend well. Most of us live with a constant gap between how we think we should be spending our money and how we actually want to be spending it. You’ll never stop worrying about money until you close that gap.
In Never Worry About Money Again, Jesse Mecham shows you how. His approach is simple, but the shift is profound. Two changes make all the difference:
Change how you see money. Each dollar represents real time, energy, and effort. Your money is an extension of you, and is therefore meant to be spent as an expression of you.
Change how you spend money. Ask one question — what’s it for? — to take control of your money, spend with confidence, and stop worrying.
When you are spending well, you are by definition being good at money.”
Jesse’s Story
The ‘money guy’ who couldn’t afford a donut
In 2004, Jesse was a newlywed accounting student with a baby on the way. Money was supposed to be his thing. But one day reality came crashing in when he was too worried to spend 50 cents on a donut. He felt like a fraud. So he built a spreadsheet to find out what his money was actually for.
He bet the house on a stranger
The spreadsheet he built to fix his own problem worked. So he started selling copies to help cover rent. Then he and his wife, Julie, spent their $21,000 house down payment paying someone he’d met on the Internet to turn it into real software (generally not recommended). YNAB has been bootstrapped ever since.
Then he told people to stop budgeting
Twenty years and millions of users later, Jesse did something strange for a man who named his company You Need A Budget: he retired the word. It doesn’t appear in the app. It doesn’t appear once in his book. Budgeting had become a synonym for restriction, and restriction was never the point. Spending was. Every money decision is a spending decision, and getting good at money means getting good at spending it—on purpose, on the things it was for. That’s the question at the center of Never Worry About Money Again: What’s it for?
The Jesse Mecham Show
Money shouldn't be this hard — and it isn't! YNAB founder Jesse Mecham is here to help you finally stop worrying about money and get good at spending it.
Press & Speaking Inquiries
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