About YNB Automotive
YNB Automotive (You Need to Budget) builds free, transparent calculators that help everyday drivers understand the real cost of buying and owning a vehicle. Our flagship Car Ownership Cost Calculator goes beyond the sticker price — it factors in financing, fuel, insurance, maintenance, taxes, registration and depreciation so you can plan with confidence.
Our mission
Car-buying decisions are some of the largest most households make. We believe the math behind those decisions should be free, fast, and easy to understand. We don't sell vehicles, loans, or insurance — we just give you the numbers.
Concretely, that means three commitments we hold ourselves to:
- Every number is reproducible. Any figure in a guide is either arithmetic you can redo from inputs we state up front, or a value from a named public source listed on our data sources page. We publish no averages we cannot point at.
- Every formula is public. The loan, depreciation, fuel and insurance math the calculator runs is written out on our methodology page, including its limitations.
- Corrections ship fast. Report an error and we fix it the same week, and note what changed.
Editorial standards
Every guide on this site is written in-house by the YNB Automotive editorial team. We do not accept sponsored posts, guest posts, or paid placements inside articles. Cost figures are drawn from public sources — EIA fuel prices, state DMV fee schedules, published insurance rate filings, KBB and Edmunds residual data, and manufacturer window stickers — and are updated at least once per year. When a figure is an estimate or judgment call, we say so in the article.
The formulas the calculator itself uses are documented on our methodology page. If you spot an error, please email us — corrections go out the same week.
Who writes this site
Brett — Founder & Editor. Brett built the You Need to Budget calculator after spending roughly a decade helping family, friends and colleagues untangle car deals: comparing dealer quotes line by line, rebuilding amortization schedules in spreadsheets when the finance office's numbers didn't add up, and pricing out the five-year cost of a purchase before anyone signed. That work is the direct experience behind every guide here — the traps we describe in the finance-office and trade-in articles are ones we have sat across the desk from.
His hands-on ownership spans gas, hybrid and battery-electric vehicles, which is why the EV comparisons on this site are framed around home-charging rates and real kWh-per-mile figures rather than headline claims. Brett writes and edits every article on YNB Automotive and personally verifies the arithmetic in each worked example before it publishes. Questions or corrections go straight to him at contact@ynbautomotive.com.
What we are not
YNB Automotive is an independent small publisher based in the United States. The editorial team is small and hands-on rather than a newsroom. We are not licensed financial advisors, insurance agents, or car dealers, and nothing on this site should be interpreted as personalized advice — see our disclaimer.
How we make money
This site is supported by display advertising (including Google AdSense). Ads help us keep the calculator and all guides free for everyone. Advertisers have no influence over our editorial content, and we do not sell your personal data. See our privacy policy for details on cookies and ad measurement.
Who runs the site
YNB Automotive is an independent publisher. For questions, feedback, or partnership inquiries, email us at contact@ynbautomotive.com.