Mvelopes Review

We all know the importance of getting out of debt. In fact people who are struggling with high interest debt must make eliminating that debt their top priority. The road to financial stability however does not end there. Managing your money responsibly is the only way to avoid future debt issues and increase your financial security through solid savings strategies. Fortunately there are many online money management tools available to consumers to help them get their finances in order. This week we will take a look at a popular method of budgeting based on a tried and tested technique.

Mvelopes is an online budgeting service that can help you regain control over your finances. Combining traditional envelope budgeting with new financial software technology, Mvelopes has created a system that allows users to create and track their spending in different areas of their budget.

What Sets It Apart?

Many online financial tools allow you to see only where you have spent your money. Everyone can agree that knowing where your money is going is a vital part of money management. Mvelopes takes this one step further by helping people determine where they will spend their money. It is a proactive approach to budgeting.

How Does It Work?

Once you create an account, you will be walked through a process that connects the service to your other online financial accounts. There is no software that has to be installed and you can use this service anywhere you connect to the Internet. Once you have connected to your checking, savings and other accounts you will determine how much income you have to pay for expenses. You create “mvelopes” for each spending category such as groceries, cable, entertainment and determine how much money you will spend in each category. Then as you make your payments your transactions appear online and you can move them into the appropriate mvelope. When it is all said and done you can see at the end of month how close you are to being on target. This can help you see where you need to cut costs or make other adjustments to your budget to prevent spending more than you have available. In addition to giving you a birds eye view of your finances, Mvelopes has these additional features:

• Online bill pay for up to 15 transactions per month making it easy and convenient to make one time or reoccurring payments.

• The ability to track your net worth. By updating all of your financial account information you can follow retirement accounts, auto loans, mortgage loans and much more.

• In this day and age of everyone being on the go, you can even track your finances from your mobile phone.

• Live support 24 hours a day five days a week.

Website Experience

I enjoyed learning about this online money management tool. In fact I considered signing up for the free trial, only to find you need to enter credit card information in the event you decide to continue your subscription after the trial ends. That is a negative for me and I’m sure many others who have ever experienced difficulty canceling “free” trial offers. That is not to say I wouldn’t consider it in the future as it appears to be a unique and relatively easy way to budget and track your spending. I also like the fact that you don’t have to download any software making it possible to log in from any location to view your account. Overall, I think the system looks promising yet I’m not sure if I would want to pay for it when there are dozens of other online management tools available at no cost.

I’d love to hear from readers who have had an experience with this service to get a better picture of how it works from someone who has used the service.