As many of you already know, I give 100% of the profits from Free Money Finance to charity (FYI, near the end of the year I'll post a list of the charities I've given to this year.) And because all of the money raised here goes to help people throughout the world, I want to make as much of it as I possibly can. More money raised equals more people helped, right?
At the same time, I don't want to clutter up the site and make it simply ads, ads, ads. Plus, I want the products I allow to be on the site to be useful, a decent value, and ones that pertain to money and money management. So I'm fairly selective in which companies I promote.
I've heard some good things about Mvelopes Personal -- the online version of the old stand-by "envelope system" of budgeting (which I've recommended for years to people who are in financial trouble and/or just starting out with budgeting) and have since added them as an affiliate to this site (BTW, the links in this post are affiliate links, just to be totally honest. But it will not cost you anything if you click on them.) That said, I'd really like to hear what you all have to say about Mvelopes since I've never used it personally. If you've used it, what do you like? What don't you like? Would you recommend it or not? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
The thing that really pushed me over the edge in offering Mvelopes was a review I saw in the September/October issue of Success Magazine. They listed "The Four Best [Software] Money Managers" (Mvelopes, Quicken, Money and TurboTax) and had this to say about Mvelopes Personal:
Modeled on the "envelopes" system of budgeting used by previous generations, Mvelopes is an online budgeting service that can be accessed anywhere and anytime you have an Internet connection. It works by linking to all of your financial accounts -- everything from your checking and savings accounts to your credit cards -- and automatically tracking those accounts in coordination with your present budget for each spending "envelope." By logging your transactions beside your yearly income, the service determines where you need to cut back and where you can spend more.
To add a bit more explanation, here's what Mvelopes says about themselves:
Mvelopes Personal is an online budgeting system that makes it easy to create an effective personal budget and track every aspect of your spending as it happens. It will help you always know exactly how much you have left to spend, instantly know the impact of every spending decision, effectively manage credit card spending, and quickly create an easy to use household budgeting plan. Click here to learn more.
They also offer a tour of their service: Take a tour of Mvelopes Personal
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:
And for those of you who are wondering, here's how Mvelopes compares itself to the two top financial management programs:
So that's all I know about Mvelopes. I've read some good things about them and checked them out myself (but not tried their service), but I need your feedback to. If you've used them, let me know what you think. And if you haven't but you decide to visit them or get one of their free offers, come back and let me know what you think as well. I'd be interested in hearing all perspectives to see if this is something I should keep supporting or not.
That's pretty generous to give away all the money you make. Personally, I dont think I could justify spending the time I do blogging if I didn't keep some of it for myself. Great job though!
Posted by: Tim | October 25, 2006 at 02:49 PM
I've actually been trying out Mvelopes recently. I bought Quicken last year when I decided to try TurboTax for my taxes. I thought that tracking everything in Quicken would really speed things up and make it easier - unforutnately I didn't do very well at tracking everything in Quicken so I don't know that I'll see the benefit. So far, the integration between Quicken and TurboTax would be the only reason I would stay with Quicken over Mvelopes. I really like the interface, the ease of use and the ability to specify up front where the money should go rather then just tracking where it went.
Maybe I just don't know how to use Quicken as well as I could, but then that's part of the point too - Mvelopes is very easy to use.
All in all, I think Mvelopes will be the way I end up going pretty soon. At this point in my financial life I have a hard time justifying keeping up to date with Quicken.
Posted by: RSN | October 25, 2006 at 03:05 PM
Have you considered starting a "charity blogroll" near the top of your site? You could make a list of charities that you support, then allow interested third parties to make a donation (via you) to one of those charities to earn a spot on the blogroll. Basically, you'd be able to leverage your site's popularity and the desire of other blogs to get links as a way of directly raising money for charities you care about.
Since Free Money Finance is raising money for charity, I think this feature might actually be somewhat popular.
Posted by: Trent | October 25, 2006 at 03:07 PM
After this post, I checked them out. I like the idea and have actually been toying with doing this the 'paper' way. The one problem I see is that some of my transactions will be split between multiple categories. For example, I visit Target and get some clothes, some groceries, and some household items. I checked with MVelopes and you can manually split the transaction, but this seems like a pain. I know - how else would you do it? Still, it seems like one of the reasons to use this system is that it automatically tracks categories. With this, I'm back to manually splitting a transaction just like in Quicken. Maybe I could use an 'average' split and have the same percentage of the transaction go to each category?
Posted by: Kevin | October 25, 2006 at 03:09 PM
Trent -- That's an interesting idea. Let me noodle on it a bit.
Posted by: FMF | October 25, 2006 at 03:11 PM
We have been using and recommending Mvelopes for more than 2 years. They have the great technology and very easy to use budgeting system that makes it very simple to track and record all of you expenses.
Posted by: Nationwidebillrelief.com | October 25, 2006 at 05:28 PM
No comment about MVelopes. I am wondering about the links to the payday loan outfits at the bottom of the page identified as site sponsors. Doesn't seem like they fit with the editorial content. I appreciate that you're donating to charity, and am not criticizing. Just wondering.
Posted by: Mike | October 25, 2006 at 06:51 PM
Mike --
Those are links sold to sites to help them improve their search engine ranking when compared to similar type sites. By placing them at the bottom, they are seen by very few people, yet still give the sites their desired benefit. And at the same time, the money they earn all goes to charity.
The ads that are higher above (in the "sponsors" section) are much more noticable (bigger, higher up on the page, etc.) and are the ones I personally endorse. As far as the Google ads on the top sides, I attempt to filter out any ad that is blatantly bad, but I'm only allowed a certain number of exclusions and I'm just at my limit. In addition, they change so frequently that I often have a hard time keeping up with them.
Hope this explains the various ads here at FMF.
Posted by: FMF | October 26, 2006 at 07:40 AM
I just tried Mvelopes. It feels more like a feature that should be included in Money and Quicken rather than an entire piece of software. Second, it's very expensive for what you get. Even if I updated to the new version of Money or quicken every year (I only upgrade for necessary features), I still wouldn't pay as much for software with fewer features. I cancelled my account, but if Mvelopes offered a standalone version for $50 that I could use for a few years rather than an online subcription I would definately consider it. Also, I would definately upgrade ot the new version of Money or Quicken if either one offered an "envelope" type feature.
Posted by: Pete | October 26, 2006 at 12:15 PM
I tried Mvelopes out some time ago for a review I did. While the concept is pretty nifty, and Mvelopes recently came out with a module to use on a smartphone, I thought it was expensive. I am also paranoid about putting ALL my financials on one company's server, although I am sure they must use the best encryption possible. It's just that if someone hacked into an Mvelopes account (if it's even possible to do so) they would not just have information on one account, but on all accounts the user established in Mvelopes.
Truth be told, I've been using Quicken for so long that it would take something really phenomonal to pry the latest version of Quicken out of my hands. My review, in case it helps anyone: http://financialsoft.about.com/od/reviewsfinancesoftware/fr/Mvelopes.htm
Shelley
Posted by: Shelley Elmblad | October 28, 2006 at 01:06 AM
Hi..I am desperatly looking for a budgeting and bill paying and debt paying off type software...and after about 2 hours of research...I have come to it's going to either be YNAB (youneedabudget.com) or mvelopes.com BUT REALLY I cannot decide because I have not used EITHER. :( I was searching for a comparison of the two (I do realize one is downloadable and the other is access anytime anywhere...but other than that...I really need someone to tell me the difference (and YNAB seems a whole lot cheaper and LOOKS like it's the same? :( Is there anyone that can tell me ?? Thanks so so much :)
Posted by: yourshopgirl | January 12, 2007 at 11:30 PM
Why not try both and see which one you like best? They both have a free trial period/money back offer. See this link for details:
http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2007/01/its_budgeting_t_2.html
Posted by: FMF | January 15, 2007 at 10:06 AM