Budgeting: Review of Mvelopes

OK. I'm pretty in love with this program/service/whatever it is. Maybe I'll ask my mom for an early Christmas present?

The Good:

• Easy to set up and link accounts. I had no problems linking my checking and savings accounts.
• Great Tech support. I did have a bit of trouble linking my credit card, but Mvelopes tech. support helped me right away. They even have live chat.
• Effortless to track expenses! When I make any purchases with my debit or credit card, they are posted into my Mvelopes account, and I just click and drag them to the appropriate category (groceries, medical, education, etc.). It's always a pain for me to print out bank/credit card statements, and separate all of the entries into different columns and add them up with a calculator. Mvelopes saves me LOTS of time, and I can assess how we're doing on our budget any given day.

The Bad:

• If you don't already have a budget/spending plan, it will still be useful for you, but it may take a few months of spending to figure out what your spending habits are.
• It takes awhile to log in and refresh my accounts, especially with Mozilla. I've had much better luck with Explorer.
• Mvelopes makes me a little too obsessed with the budget. I need to limit myself the number of times to check it in a week! : )
  

Budgeting: Mvelopes

For some of the more flexible items in our budget, like haircut money, clothes money, etc., we use the envelope system. I first learned about this budgeting method through Ruth Hayden's wonderful books, but many others tout this method as well.

How does it work? Well, for clothing, we budget $20/month, so I put $20 cash into a designated envelope every month. When I go to buy clothes, I can use the cash that is in that envelope, and no more. I could take some cash from the Met Opera envelope, but that would mean we'd miss an opera.

Some people use this system virtually. They set up spreadsheets and divvy up their paychecks that way, but don't have actual cash in hand. I've recently seen a product called Mvelopes that intrigues me. You pay a subscription (about $14/month), and it guides you into setting up your virtual envelope system. Mvelopes links to your bank, credit cards, 401k, etc., and it keeps track of your spending for you! The subscription also includes on-line bill pay, and some other cool features.

Although I'm not sure I want to give Mvelopes $14 every month, they do have a one month free trial that I WILL try, and then report back to you. It seems like a really cool idea!