Using Software to Help You Budget

April 20, 2007 By Matthew Paulson

Budgeting was extremely commonplace in the 19th century and well into the early 20th century, but now of days it seems that most people just try to live on what they get without developing a plan for their money. Perhaps people think that they are too busy, that they don’t know how to make a budget, or they don’t see the benefit of creating and following a monthly budget. For whatever the reason, people just are not budgeting any more.

Creating a monthly budget is an absolutely critical component of having a successful financial life. A monthly budget is you telling your money where to go, rather than just letting it slip away for you. It creates focused intensity and direction for your money, so that you’re working towards goals rather than just spending it as you please. It helps you make progress in your financial life and helps you realize where all of the waste in the money you’re spending is. It makes sure you keep your financial priorities straight, it’s an absolute must.

If you haven’t started budgeting because you don’t think that you have the time or the understanding of finance to do so, fortunately there’s help for you out there. There’s plenty of great pieces of budgeting software which can help you easily make a budget on your computer with a minimal amount of time. In addition, these pieces of software will help you with the mathematics and the know-how of finance to help you create a budget.

Consider checking out some of these software budgeting tools that we’ve reviewed:

Mvelopes – This is a great budgeting tool with a 30 day free trial. Mvelopes is essentially a version of the “envelope” system, but brought into the 21st century. You can create categories for all of your spending, and whenever you spend money, you enter them into Mvelopes or let Mvelopes do it for you through online banking and it tells you how you are doing in each of your categories to make sure that you haven’t spent too much or too little in each category. This program was very well written and is quite technically advanced, you can enter new transactions in from just about anywhere with an internet connection.

Budget by Snowmint – This program is similar to Mvelopes in the fact that it uses the envelope based budget system. It’s not as technically advanced as Mvelopes, but does come with a much cheaper price. Snowmint is a one-time fee of $29.95 and Mvelopes cost $7.95 per month. If all you need is basic spending management, Budget by Snowmint is probably more than enough for your needs.

You Need a Budget – This isn’t actually a piece of standalone software, but rather a very complicated Excel spreadsheet. The site focuses a lot on patting themselves on the back, as they cover their site with testimonials, and their front page looks like a huge advertisement. There’s very little information about all of the features that it has, just that apparently some people like it. When we went to the site, we couldn’t even see the screenshots of the software because their image server was down! You Need A Budget sells two versions, one for $19.95 and one for $39.95 with more features.

Posted in personal finance

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