This is the third post in a series of financial software reviews. On Monday I reviewed Wesabe, and I reviewed Mint yesterday. Today I will tackle Mvelopes*. With the slogan “The Simple, Smarter Budgeting System”, Mvelopes gives itself a lot to live up to. And Mvelopes delivers.
The Process
Adding an account to Mvelopes is a simple process. Just plug in your information, and Mvelopes takes care of the rest. Setting up your budget is a more involved process, but Mvelopes provides a good tutorial to help you along. Mvelopes makes it easy to budget each paycheck, as long as your paychecks are about the same size every month. I ran into trouble when my husband was paid a base salary plus commission, because I never knew what his commission would look like from month to month. I got around it by budgeting the necessities out of Jim’s base salary and budgeting the variable expenses out of his commission.
When our income became really irregular, due to unemployment checks and various part time income, using the budget feature in Mvelopes was pretty much impossible.
I like that Mvelopes provides tools for balancing your checkbook and online bill pay. It truly is a one stop application for budgeting, tracking spending, and bill pay. Their customer service is also excellent. Anytime I’ve had a problem, a quick call to customer service straightened it out.
If you’re planning on running up credit card debt, Mvelopes is not the program for you. I found out the hard way that running up additional debt is a sure way to screw up the budget you create for yourself in Mvelopes. After doing that, I pretty much had to start over with a new budget.
If you’re trying to pay off your cards, however, and you’re really committed to no new debt, Mvelopes is a great tool. And if you charge purchases and pay them off at the end of the month, Mvelopes also works well. It’s only when you carry a new balance from month to month that things get dicey.
Mvelopes has a pretty steep learning curve when you get started, but once you have it figured out, it’s a powerful program. You can sign up for a 30 day trial to check things out, and 30 days is about the right amount of time to decide whether it will work for you or not.
The Pros
- Online, so it’s accessible from any computer.
- Great customer service.
- 30 day free trial before you have to pay.
- Online bill pay.
- Make your budget before you spend.
- Reconciling your account is easy.
- Discourages new debt.
The Cons
- Cost. It comes to between $6.32 and $10.56 per month, depending on whether you pay quarterly, yearly, or biannually.
- Steep learning curve.
- Can be difficult for irregular income.
I’ve used Mvelopes* myself for over a year now. The 30 day trial is worth a shot. I’m thinking about switching to another program, solely based on the cost. So far I haven’t found a program that is as thorough as this one, though.
Be sure to stay tuned tomorrow, when I review Y-NAB*!
*Affiliate link
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I pay my fixed expenses/ bills through online banking with my bank. I do however like keeping track of my money/budget at http://www.walletproof.com/welcome . Walletproof however does not hook right up to your bank, you have to type in your figures and categories for your money spent etc…I do however really love the way their website is set up for this.
You can take a tour of it at the website addy I just posted. It’s a great way to track your money and it is free :).
Thanks for the review of this product. I have been an excel man for a long time, but I am starting to look at some other things.
I haven’t actively used cash in over 7 years and was a VERY early adopter of on-line bill pay systems when they came out in the late 1990’s. Unfortunately that means that MVelopes will do virtually no good for me or my family.
I would recommend it for those people/families that deal with cash on a regular basis though. Cash doesn’t leave a paper trail (usually) so it’s hard to realize how much you’ve spent or where exactly.
I’ve tried to find programs that could sort my expenses into neat categories (grocery, eating out) but I’m finding that the programs out there are not always able to properly differentiate items into the right categories. I end up having to do things manually, which defeats the whole time saving goal.
-Raymond
I just tried out mint- and it gave me advice to use CountryWide bank- with a whopping 5.5% interest rate on CDs! I signed up! Thx.
Thanks for the reviews. I’m still trying to find a budget program that works for us. Since our income varies from month to month, Mvelopes will probably not work for us.
Since this post was from a while ago, I was wondering if you had any experience with any other budgeting software? We are both independent contractors, and therefore have irregular earnings. any other ideas? My husband just signed us up for the Mvelopes 30 day trial. Any info/advise would be helpful.
thanks
nice post…
I would like like to draw your attention to a robust money management software manageME.
1.) It is so easy to use that even a small kid and a 66 yr old grandpa can use it without any assistance
2.)one can track his/her expenses anytime,anywhere while traveling.
3.)my feedback are properly dealt every time.
and the good news is that it is launching its fully loaded version shortly.i.e manageME7. its blog section is very interesting and informative.My kids read it regularly and learn the essence of money.you may check the updated at http://www.mangeme7.com/blog
I love Mvelopes. It is sinple, flexible (easy to customize categories), and has all your data so there is no manually adding of debits and deposits. It has really helped us get a hold on our spending and where we stand financially – definitely worth the money!