Our Mvelopes Review

We're writing this Mvelopes review first because it's what we use to manage our own finances. Why did we drop Quicken Deluxe, a program we'd used for years to manage 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.

A recent screen shot

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.

The website 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 this service is only available to those who live in Canada, the United States or Australia.)

What's Envelope Budgeting, Anyway?

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 Finicity does regular updates to keep up with online finance trends and general internet hardware trends and advances.

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!

Setting Up Your Account

We set our initial 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 took a weekend afternoon 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, since several upgrades have taken place since then.

Our Overall Experience

How is Mvelopes.com working for us? Well...

The biggest benefit is how the system lets us set aside money for non-monthly expenses like a tithe, taxes, 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 both got 2G iPhones a few months ago, and can now take advantage of the Mobile module. (All you have to do is point your phone browser to http://m.mvelopes.com. Finicity has opened up app development, so there may be an iPhone app in the near future as well.) This service is invaluable when you're out and about, making purchase decisions. You have all your data at your fingertips.

In short, we're proactively managing our money, versus tracking what we've already spent!

We can take windfalls like tax refunds and months with extra paychecks and allocate how that money will be used. (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 do your banking, you probably won't like online budgeting, either. But if you think you'd like to give online envelope budgeting a try, you can always take advantage of the 30-day. Same goes for those of you who are comfortable with the internet and managing your money online, but not sure about switching to a web-based system. With a free trial, there's nothing to lose.

Questions About Security?

We've used Mvelopes for nearly four years and have never had an issue with our accounts being compromised. We have several checking and savings accounts, credit card accounts, and loan accounts.

However, we have a secure firewall installed on our home network, and we're diligent about protecting our log-ins and passwords, something you should always do regardless of how you're managing your money.

Some Cool Features

You can take advantage of Finicity'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 from the account 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. We already had bill-pay set up through our bank so we haven't used this service.

Love to stay on top of your net worth? Envelope budgeting may be all about income and expenses, but personal finance isn't. You can set up your personal balance sheet and track your net worth, 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 account, so you can see how much you're currently worth at the click of a button, even as you're managing your online budget.

In fact, the better you're managing your budget, the more your net worth will increase...

A really cool new feature I already mentioned is mobile module, 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!

In early 2009 Finicity added personal coaching, which is pretty cool. You just log on to your account, bring up the chat window, and presto! Instant advice! I absolutely love this idea, and use it all the time on other sites as well. If you're stuck, don't waste time trying to figure out what to do. Chat with your friendly customer service rep--even if it's just a question related to your own personal budget.

Finally, Mvelopes has added forums, perfect for all of us who just love social networking. Most of the online money management sites offer forums, and for good reason. You can pick up some great advice and tips from other users. You can encourage those who are frustrated, and be encouraged in turn. Just like most other services, Mvelopes customer service folks monitor the forums, and provide responses here and there to questions or feedback.

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. You can import your Quicken data and continue to use that information.

However, you can't combine your Quicken historical data and current 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 via Quicken reports to set up your account envelopes, and tweak your budget, if needed.

Good Customer Service?

Finicity 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.)

Top 10 Reasons To Use Mvelopes.com

I've tried to be as upfront as possible here about why we tried Mvelopes.com 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. But the information is accurate, and useful. I think it's a nice summary. :-)

Conclusion

This 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 this 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, who may already be great at managing their money. But they don't offer envelope budgeting, the main benefit of which is proactive spending, versus tracking spending. They also they don't offer as many useful features, and I don't believe they 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 five years of using Mvelopes, and we're still happy with it!