Comments on: YNAB 3 Review: Give Me Back My Mvelopes

By: vlad

vlad — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:03:10 +0000

I’ve been using mvelopes for more than 3 years now and have found it suitable for all kinds of income. I don’t have any affiliation to mvelopes other than being a happy user.

Julia what you’re describing it’s easily solved in Mvelopes…I’m surprised that the support folks haven’t really pointed this out to you. In your spending plan you add a new Income (Click on Spend Plan then New Income), you give it an Annual recurrence and enter the paydate on the date you expect the income to become reality…you could use December 31st if you want or January 1st of this year…it doesn’t matter. Then this becomes part of your Spending Plan.

Another easy way is to create a new Pending transaction with a future date when you can expect the income to realize. You assign this transaction to your Income Pool and this becomes part of your available income pool which you can use to fund your spending plan each month.

I hope I understood correctly what you’re describing…let me know if my solution doesn’t make sense.

By: Wojo

Wojo — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:42:26 +0000

Kong,

YNAB is designed for that purpose because it teaches you to live off last month’s income. So that’s what I would recommend…
If your swings are huge (like $1,000 one month and $5,000 the next), I would also recommend some kind of separate checking account where you keep the excess from good months and use an average for your budgets.

By: kong

kong — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:30:44 +0000

Wojo,

It seems you have experience with few budgeting software out there. From your experience and point of view, what’s a good software for those who don’t have the same income from month to month?

By: Wojo

Wojo — Fri, 06 May 2011 02:54:29 +0000

Julia, YNAB and Common Cents are the closest competitors you could check out. Have you tried doing a “monthly average” for your income in Mvelopes to include the extra from your few thousand? That would be how I’d set it up. If you need more monthly detail, the only software I’ve really seen that’s capable would be Quicken.

By: Julia

Julia — Thu, 05 May 2011 22:08:12 +0000

We’ve been using mvelopes for 3 months now and it’s great to be budgeting but I’m really frustrated with some of the glitches on Mvelopes. For instance, it doesn’t allow for yearly budgeting. This year I got an extra few thousand. We decided to build our spending plan (budget) to include spending that money monthly for the year. unfortunately, the budgeting software won’t allow it– lots and lots of glitches and the tech help couldn’t solve the problem. They just suggested I let my budget look like it’s in the red when it is isn’t. NOT A SOLUTION.
Mvelopes live chat is helpful for the frequent problems but those folks in Bangalore or wherever are not trained enough to solve even a medium complexity problem.
I’d like to check out the competition– any good ones for small business owners who don’t earn the same salary each month?

By: Wojo

Wojo — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:58:04 +0000

No, you absolutely CAN download transactions. What I’m saying is that in Mvelopes, this is done for you automatically, while in YNAB you have to do it yourself for each and every account you have.

By: Wash Irv

Wash Irv — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:07:37 +0000

I am trying to decide between YNAB and Mvelopes. Are you saying that I cannot download transactions from my credit card and checking accounts into YNAB but I have to enter them manually? If so, that would weigh pretty heavily in favor of Mvelopes, despite its higher cost.

By: Linda

Linda — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:44:56 +0000

Wojo, I appreciate all your response and this blog. I decided to trial (7days) YNAB and completed a couple of webinars yesterday. I prefer not to pay for a subscription so we’ll see. My problem is I need to stick to it and not fall off the wagon -like a diet!

By: Wojo

Wojo — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 18:40:34 +0000

I’ll chime in here, since my wife also weighs in on this issue, and she prefers Mvelopes for ease of use. She liked it so much at home, she now uses it for her business (she’s an administrator). She is VERY anti-numbers, so getting her to use a financial software was incredible.

By: Linda

Linda — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:35:03 +0000

Since early this morning, I’ve looked at Mint.com, YNAB.com and Mvelopes. I know I don’t want Mint.com, but a bit indecisive on which of the other to buy. I do need something! I want something easy and without a long learning curve (that’s why I won’t buy Quicken). I do use online bill bay with US Bank and love it, so the online downloadable feature is a plus. It sounds from what the comments many of you are techies or good at accounting…I am not! I am curious of the females out there what do they feel works for them or at least seems more user friendly.