I understand that most people who are serious about their personal finances have some sort of budgeting system. I spent several months trying out one budgeting system after another, with varying degrees of success. I have gone from MS Money to Excel Spreadsheets, back and forth a few times, and never did I have a consistent degree of success. I currently have an easy-to-use budgeting system that works for me, and my wife doesn’t completely hate, so that’s what we use.

But what if I hadn’t already found a budgeting system? And what if my wife hadn’t made me promise that I’d never switch budgeting systems again (she got tired of it after the 5th time)? Well, being a guy, I still keep searching for and trying new budgeting systems, even though I already have one that works (don't tell my wife). That’s how I found Mvelopes Personal. It kept popping up at the top of every search I did for “personal budget system”, so I thought I’d check it out. Here’s what I found:

Mvelopes has many more features than my budgeting system. First of all, it currently supports online access to 9,244 financial institutions. That means yours is almost definitely supported. Also, it integrates your budget with your online bank or credit card accounts. That means you don’t have to do manual entries for your purchases – that’s already done by your bank or credit card, automatically. All you do is tell Mvelopes which category each purchase belongs to. Even better, you can simplify the process by telling Mvelopes that purchases from a certain store always belong to a specific category.

Another great feature is Mvelopes’ integrated Bill Pay service. You can pay up to 15 bills a month, which is a savings of about $5.50 on postage. Also, it eliminates the hassle of dealing with paper, envelopes, and checks. I switched all of my bills to online-pay months ago, and I haven’t looked back. It saves time, money, and headaches, because with Mvelopes, you can automatically keep track of which bills you’ve paid. You can even automate your bill payments.

Since Mvelopes is online, you have the ability to be anywhere and still access your financial information. Account balances, credit card spending, and how much is left is your budget, it’s all available, 24 hours a day, from any computer with web access. That's a feature I'd sure like to have with my current Excel spreadsheet budgeting system.

Mvelopes is also amazingly easy to use, and difficult to screw up. If you’ve used an Excel budgeting spreadsheet, you know how important it is to make sure you have a backup copy in case you inadvertently change an important formula or accidently delete the file. With Mvelopes, your data is secure, backed up, and impossible for you to mess up. And, if you ever have a problem, you can always call Mvelopes user support. You don’t get that peace of mind with Microsoft Money or Quick. Believe me, I’ve tried them both, and somehow I always managed to mess up something that I couldn’t undo. User support for MS Money or Quicken? Forget about it, it doesn’t exist, you’re on your own.

So how does Mvelopes save you money? After all, they claim that you’ll “recover 10% of your income from hidden spending”. Well, it’s a psychological fact that anything you pay attention to, you become more aware of, and you’ll understand better. The old way, you’d just go out to eat whenever you felt like it, and because you didn’t pay attention to when and where you spent your money, you’d always be surprised at the end of the month. But when you’re using a budgeting system like Mvelopes, you’ll see that, “Ah, 15% of my money is going to eating out,” and you’ll be able to make decisions accordingly. It is so amazing, the difference it makes when you know where your money goes. You’ll find yourself spending less, and saving more, and you’ll feel better because you’re finally getting your finances on track.

You’re probably itching to be done reading, and to check out Mvelopes, so I’ll just leave you with a quick list of the advantages and disadvantages of Mvelopes:

Advantages:

• Ease of use – With Mvelopes, you get step-by-step interactive training the first time you use it (or any time after that). Learning to use Mvelopes is a breeze, and using it regularly makes so-called “tedious budgeting” a thing of the past.
• Connectivity – Mvelopes is connected to all the accounts you use, so you can check out transactions while you’re using your budgeting system.
• Bill Pay – Save money and time, and gain peace of mind, by using the automated, integrated Bill Pay service. You’ll never miss stamps and envelopes.
• Track your net worth – It’s exciting to see your net worth go up as you save money and spend less.
• Personalized coaching and support – You’ve always got help available, with telephone support, online tips and discussion, and a monthly newsletter.

Disadvantages:

• Monthly fee – Mvelopes costs between $7.90 and $13.20 per month, depending on whether you select the 2-year, 1-year, or quarterly plan. I dislike paying a monthly fee for anything, but I can see how paying $7.90 would easily be offset by the money saved by weeding out unnecessary spending.
• Loading time – Mvelopes takes about 15 seconds to load on my old computer. I guess it’s worth it, though, since Mvelopes makes it unnecessary to manually enter transactions, something that takes me about 15 minutes each week.

Conclusion:
Mvelopes is a good alternative to traditional spreadsheet budgeting systems. It's not for everybody, but it's solid enough that it will work well for anybody. If you haven't already got a budgeting system in place that works well for you, and saves you both time and money, here’s what you need to do:

1) Click here to test-drive the Mvelopes Budget Calculator - It will give you an idea of just how much money you can expect to save/recover after implementing an Mvelopes budget.
2) Take a tour of Mvelopes Personal - It's a quick, visual explanation of what I've talked about above. You'll get to see just how simple and easy Mvelopes is to use, and how it will benefit you.
3) Click here to try the free 30-day trial of Mvelopes - See how you like it, and see how it puts financial freedom and peace of mind within your reach.