Mvelopes a Winner for a Quicken User

I'm feeling better and better about recommending Mvelopes Personal as a software budget tracking system after comments like this one (left on my post titled Mvelopes Seems to be a Winner (At Least for Most People)):

I used Quicken for years, but I switched to Mvelopes about a year ago and never looked back. You don't actually give Mvelopes your bank account and credit card numbers. You go to your bank and credit card web sites and set up online user ids and passwords like 'Frank12 / password1'. That allows you to view your bank / credit card account transactions online. When you set up a Mvelopes account, you only give it the online user ids and passwords, no account information. Mvelopes uses the user ids to suck daily transactions from the bank / credit card websites and store it in their database. Even if someone hacked into Mvelopes and got the user ids, they couldn't use them to steal your money. It's really cool because it updates daily.

I'm not sure I could give up Quicken (too many years of data in it) and switch to Mvelopes, but it sounds to me like Mvelopes may be a good complement to Quicken. After all, the budgeting feature in Quicken is its weak point (I don't use it personally, I use my own spreadsheet) and this seems to be where Mvelopes shines.

For more information, here's how Mvelopes compares to both Quicken and Microsoft Money:

• Compare to Microsoft Money

• Compare to Quicken

Another thing that pushed me over the edge towards working with them is that they offer people free offers and valuable tools just to get to know them (plus they have a 30-day free trial, so you can't get burned trying them out.) Here are the offers I particularly liked:

• Take a tour of Mvelopes Personal

• Financial Fitness Quiz

• Free Budgeting E-book

• Free Debt Calculator

• Get a FREE 30 day trial of Mvelopes Personal

Any other thoughts/comments out there?

Comments

[Katie]

I LOVE Mvelopes - I use it to track my money and budget. I never budgeted before (or, to be honest, I budgeted after-the-fact - like being shocked at how much I HAD spent that month). Unlike Quicken, I don't have to wait to see how I'm meeting my budget once the money has been spent - I can just take a quick look at my envelopes and see how I'm doing.

Seeing the envelopes in the red has a good effect on me, too - it makes me ashamed and want to do better!

I really am a fan of Mvelopes - it took me a while to get the hang of it, but now I adore it and it's really helping me meet my goals.

[red2black]

Count me as another fan of Mvelopes. I had a few problems with it at first (like getting my transactions to download), but overall, I think it's great. I especially like being able to access it from anywhere at anytime. Also, as mentioned above, being able to see at a glance where you stand with your budget is very helpful, and it gives you a more realistic idea of where you are spending.

[Greling]

Why pay for this when you can use Yodlee.com for free? It's essentially the same thing.

[Dennis]

I had used Quicken for many years before trying Mvelopes. I became sold when my wife actually liked it. I've been using Mvelopes now for more than a year and pay for it with budget savings.