Mvelopes.com Review

How does it rate with us?

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Review Last Updated: 04/18/2009
Mvelopes.com

Cost: 30-day free trial
Quarterly, annual and bi-annual plans for $13.20, $10.80 and $7.90 per month

Our Rating:

4.5 piggybanks

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Overview

Why did we switch from Quicken Deluxe for our personal finances? Because we felt we needed to try envelope budgeting to get our finances back on track, after a couple years of expenses outpacing income due to a job layoff and other circumstances.

**2008 UPDATE***-- Mvelopes.com has now expanded to "Finicity", a "social money management site", as their website calls it. Finicity.com will include the Finicity Money Manager (formerly Mvelopes) as well as support groups, mentors, and forums. Joining Finicity is free, but using the Finicity Money Manager will require the same quarterly, annual or bi-annual fee Mvelopes charges. **

We were attracted to Mvelopes because we already used our computer to manage our money. We'd been doing online banking since 1999 and, as I said before, we'd used Quicken for several years. The idea of managing our family budget and finances online wasn't that scary a concept for us.

Mvelopes claimed we could recover nearly 10% of our expenses through "hidden spending". We needed that 10%! So that was attractive to us as well.

(For our international readers, please note Mvelopes is only available to those who live in Canada, the United States or Australia.)

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What's Envelope Budgeting, Anyway?

Not sure what envelope budgeting is, or how to do it? We explain it here.

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Envelope Budgeting Goes High-Tech

The Mvelopes system is web-based, so you can access it from any computer, a big plus in a household like ours with 5+ computers. We found its loading and response time to be pretty good.

We were also pleased to find Mvelopes does regular updates to keep up with online finance trends and general internet hardware trends and advances as well.

Please note that we use a high-speed cable connection to access internet at home. If you're using dial-up or slower methods of internet access, you may experience much longer wait times.

We also prefer using the Mozilla Firefox browser, which is faster than Internet Explorer. You can download it for free here.

PLEASE be aware that you should never, ever do online banking or personal finance on an unsecured computer or network. We have several layers of security, including a firewall and secure connections to our wireless router. If your wireless internet comes up as "unsecured" when you connect, you definitely want to pull out that manual for your wireless router and learn how to set up password-protected connections!

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Setting Mvelopes Up

We set our initial Mvelopes account up a couple years ago, and it went pretty smoothly. We found it useful to go slowly and review all the tutorials. Don't rush it. Since then, we've had to delete accounts, change accounts and add new accounts. Very few problems--and any problems we did encounter were quickly resolved by support.

One handy tip: make sure you have all your account information at your fingertips before you get started.

It definitely took a few hours to set our account up, but like I said, that was a couple years ago, so you may find it an even easier process than we did, after several upgrades.

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Our Experience

How is Mvelopes working for us? Well...

The biggest benefit to us is how Mvelopes lets us set aside money for non-monthly expenses like vacation, large purchases, Christmas and more. It's similar to savings goals in Quicken, but "real-time" within our checking account.

We also like having the ability to quickly and easily switch money between envelopes. If we need more money for groceries, we empty our dining out envelope and switch the money over. That's a little bit more of a hassle when you use a regular envelope budgeting system.

Since my husband is handling our personal finance/budgeting system right now, he likes having the ability to check on transactions or pay bills from work as well as home. (Note to husband's employer: he only does this on his breaks or lunch hour!) We haven't taken advantage of the Mobile Mvelopes yet but I think it's a great idea.

In short, when and if we overspend in a category, we have a plan. We aren't blindly spending money without realizing the impact on other bills that have to be paid.

We can take windfalls like tax refunds and months with extra paychecks and allocate how that money will be spent. (Although, technically, a tax refund is not a windfall, it's the repayment of a no-interest loan we gave to the government...but I digress).

If you don't like to use the internet to shop or manage your money, you probably won't like Mvelopes. You may want to give it a try--with the 30-day trial there's nothing to lose.

If you enjoy using the internet or money management software, you'll probably find Mvelopes is right up your alley.

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Some Cool Mvelopes Features

You can take advantage of Mvelopes's free bill-pay module, which saves time and hassle. Your bank may offer the same service, but it's awfully convenient to do it through Mvelopes, where you're managing your money anyway. Note that you only get 15 bill-pay transactions for free each month. After that, you'll be charged $.50 per additional transaction.

Love to stay on top of your net worth? Mvelopes isn't all about income and expenses. You can set up your personal balance sheet and track your net worth in Mvelopes, just like Quicken, by setting up asset accounts like savings and investments and liability accounts like loans and mortgages. Transactions will automatically be downloaded to your Mvelopes account, so you can see how much you're worth at the click of a button.

However, if this feature might be depressing for the time being (in other words, your net worth is negative), you don't have to use it. Been there, done that. :-) Keep using Mvelopes and you'll find your situation turning around in no time.

A really cool new feature is Mvelopes Mobile, which lets you access your account through your internet-enabled cell phone or Blackberry or iPhone. If you're at the grocery store, check to see how much money is left in your "Groceries" envelope, on the fly. Neat stuff!

If you'd like to take a Flash tour of here.

In early 2009 Mvelopes added Personal Coaching, which is just awesome. You just log on to your account, bring up the chat window, and presto! Instant advice! I absolutely love this idea. If you're stuck, don't waste time trying to figure out what to do. Ask your friendly Mvelopes customer service rep--even if it's just a question related to your own personal budget.

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What If I'm Using Quicken?

One of the great things about Quicken is being able to analyze your spending data, to easily see where your money went and identify patterns. This helps you modify your home budget going forward. Well, you don't have to give that up if you switch to Mvelopes. You can import your Quicken data to Mvelopes and continue to use that information.

However, you can't combine your Quicken historical data and current Mvelopes information. It's like two separate modules. You can go back and look at your Quicken information, but you can't mix it up with your Mvelopes data. Benefit? You can delete Quicken off your computer but still use all the great information you've accumulated to set up your envelopes and tweak your budget, if needed.

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Good Customer Service?

Mvelopes offers unlimited live customer support, which we've used and found to be very courteous and responsive. You can use the live chat feature to get help 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. (As an aside, I use this feature with our bank, my web host, and other such places--it's fabulous! Give live chat a try whenever it's available to you.)

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Top 10 Reasons To Use Mvelopes

I've tried to be as upfront as possible here about why we tried Mvelopes and why we continue to use it. Go here to see a list of 10 reasons why you should use Mvelopes, along with customer testimonials. It may be a repeat of some things I've said here, and yes, it's a promotional page by Mvelopes. But the information is accurate--and applicable to our financial situation. They say it better than I can. ;-)

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Conclusion

Mvelopes is perfect for you if:
--you like using your computer to track your finances
--you want to try envelope budgeting
--you find Quicken too complex or not very helpful in sticking to your budget

Why try Mvelopes over free services, like Mint.com or Wesabe.com? Good question.

Answer: you get what you pay for. The free services are great for folks with simple finances. But they don't offer envelope budgeting, they don't have as many features, and they don't have the same level of customer support.

Give Mvelopes a test drive. Manage your finances for 30 days using Mvelopes alongside one of the free services, and see what you think.

Personally, we're going on over three years of using Mvelopes, and we're still happy!

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