Nerdy Dork

About 2 years ago a friend told me about Dave Ramsey. At the time I was struggling to figure out a way to do better with finances. I had visited financial advisers and been given bad advice. I was really quite frustrated. After listening to Dave Ramsey things started making sense and budgeting didn’t sound so scary. For those of you not familiar with Dave, he recommends a zero based budget system and especially recommends using cash and envelopes to budget for items such as groceries, clothing, entertainment, etc.

We gave it a try for a few months, but it just didn’t seem to work for us. We were just too used to the conveniences of debit cards. I tried programs like Quicken and Microsoft Money, which were great for tracking your money AFTER you spent it, but their budget systems didn’t work for us. They seemed to be based on averages and the perfect month in a perfect world. They just were not flexible from month to month. I went online looking for a virtual envelope budget system of sorts (I was ready to write my own if I couldn’t find one). That is when I found Mvelopes.

I gave the free trial a go and liked what I saw. Initially it was buggy and slow, but since it has been rewritten in Flash the performance has been much more reliable.

Before Mvelopes, we used to dip into overdraft EVERY month. It was just a way of life. Now I really don’t monitor what my bank balance is because it really doesn’t matter. Every dollar has a name and it in in virtual envelope in the Mvelopes system. Now we put money aside each month for Christmas and for those yearly expenses such as life insurance and gym memberships. I’m enjoying saving money by paying these things yearly because I know I can do it now, I don’t need to pay the extra fees to be on a monthly plan. In the past two years we have reduced our debt by $20,000 and I believe by the end of 2008 we will be debt free except for our house.

Budgeting with my wife has gotten much easier. I’m the nerd in the family so I fund the envelopes, print out a report, then we take 10-15 minutes to review it together. She can tell me what adjustments to make (if we need more money for close or a birthday or something) and I and adjust envelope amounts. So, not only has the application helped our finances, it has helped our marriage.

I highly recommend Mvelopes to all my friends. I tell them to give the 30 day demo a try and and you’ll find the subscription cost is totally worth the value you get.

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