Switching from Mvelopes!
Ok, I have been a long-time Mvelopes user - like 10+ years. I LOVED the methodology. I have tolerated the glitchiness. After being forced to 'upgrade' to Mvelopes 5, which has no reconciliation feature, and the app is completely un-intuitive - I have decided to give YNAB a whirl. :) If you're a former Mvelopes user and have any tips for me, I'm all ears!!
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Welcome! I believe there's a whole thread about making the transition from Mvelopes to YNAB.
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Superbone thank you!
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Superbone Hi I'm working on switching too. The mvelopes 5 roll out and the deleting of all the useful debt center functionality and the horrible mobile app were the end of the line for me.
Would love an update on your experience with YNAB.
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Slate Gray Sander I've been with YNAB since 2008. It was my first real budgeting app. I don't count Quicken which I probably used for 20 years before that and did nothing for me other than allow me to see all my money issues after the fact. Here's the thread I'm referring to from a former mvelopes user:
https://support.youneedabudget.com/t/x147a0/my-transition-from-mvelopes-to-ynab
I have personally had an amazing financial change since finding and fully using YNAB. I went from lots of debt and no liquid savings to putting two kids through college, no debt other than a mortgage, and an embarrassing amount of liquid funds. I was able to pay cash for my last car which was not inexpensive. It has been life changing for me and it's the reason I try to give back on these forums.
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Superbone That's a really cool story. I've been using Mvelopes since 2008 but have now switched to YNAB (for similar reasons described by others here). I too am married with kids. It is encouraging to see YNAB helping folks live well and also that it has such a dedicated user-base, that's very encouraging. Thank you for contributing. I am reading and learning from folks like you! Thank you so much!
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Powder Blue Crab Welcome! From my understanding, Mvelopes and YNAB are very similar in that they're both zero based envelope budgets. It's too bad Mvelopes drove away their users. There's been quite the influx of Mvelope users. Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions or issues.
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Superbone Do you miss the Debt section? In Mvelopes 5 and 4 as you recall there was a Debt register where you could see your interest payments projected into the future. I didn't have excessive debt, but I did enjoy looking at my mortgage and seeing how much interest I was saving by doubling-up on some of my payments.
Another thing, in YNAB I was told to just start budgeting today and ignore the fact that I was starting mid-month. I've got my Categories setup all nice (even with emoji's!), and all my Goals set, but even so as time goes on I find myself wishing I had started YNAB at the beginning of the month so that I had a true picture of my spending beginning at the start of the month. Am I wrong to desire this?
Cheers!
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Powder Blue Crab I'm not sure where you got the impression but I've never used Mvelopes. Sounds like a cool feature though. I know there are many external tools that do that but I can see where it would be nice to be built in.
As far as starting mid-month vs the beginning of a month, give it time. It will be long forgotten. I would think after years of Mvelopes use, you would already know that information but it will be apparent soon enough.
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Powder Blue Crab I DO miss the debt centre - it was always fun to plug in different numbers and see how much we could speed up our debt payoff. Now that we only have mortgage debt, I just use an external calculator to play with those numbers (but I do miss having it built in). The other thing I miss, is Mvelopes would automatically break down the mortgage payment into taxes, principal, and interest - so we always knew how much was going to each. In YNAB you have to calculate that manually and enter them as transactions if you want to track your mortgage balance. I got used to it though and it’s not the end of the world.
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Powder Blue Crab I also started mid month as Mvelopes was so messed up from the switch to M5 that I basically would have had to start over anyway. I figured if I was going to start over I might as well try something else. I’ve been a follower of YNAB methodology for years, just preferred the Mvelopes app before. So making the switch to YNAB wasn’t that difficult (we were already a month ahead in Mvelopes), it was more a matter of learning the slight differences in how the app works. I also miss having 2 different windows for Pending and Inbox, because I always knew if there were unmatched transactions. In YNAB it’s all in one window so I sometimes have trouble knowing if it’s my manual entry or the downloaded transaction that’s in there.
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Creekside Simplicity Easiest way to tell if it was manual or downloaded transaction is if the little 'c' at the end of the row is green, (cleared) that means it came from the downloaded transaction. If it's grey, it was manual. Also, when I create a scheduled transaction, I set a colored flag, so I know it was scheduled. Different colors can mean different things. I have a different color for income, outgo, and account transfers. But that's just me, you can easily distinguish that by looking at which column the money is in to see if it was coming or going.
Anyway, just a tip to help distinguish between types of pending transactions.
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Bruce Thank you so much! That is helpful.
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Welcome to YNAB, Creekside Simplicity ! I'm glad you're giving the trial a spin. Let us know if you have questions along the way!
This thread has a great breakdown, and there are quite a few others too. If you have specific questions, I'm sure folks will chime in! Bruce may have some insights to share.-
Nicole thanks for the welcome!
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Hi Creekside Simplicity !
I'm in that same boat. It became unusable, and I lost my entire history and just gave up on them. :( Had a life account that went up in smoke. I have to say, I'm most impressed with YNAB, and how well it does work.
If you have questions, let us know!
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Stephen Kirven I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had a bad experience too. :(
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You held out much longer than I did. I've been on YNAB for a year and a half now and my financial picture is better than it ever was using Mvelopes. Like Mvelopes, it's an envelope budgeting system so that part you're used to. Probably the biggest difference is the concept of "only budget with the money that you have." Mvelopes allows (even encourages?) you to include all expected income for the month and budget based on that. Especially when you have not consistent amounts coming in, that can get you in trouble.
I also threw away my lifetime membership to Mvelopes, but I no longer consider it a sacrifice. YNAB is so much better. As the others have said, if you have specific questions, feel free to ask, but I think you've made a good choice.
I'll be available intermittently this week, as I'm on vacation in a place with sketchy to nonexistent internet but just wanted to welcome you, as a fellow Mvelopes refugee.
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Bruce thank you so much! We’ve only been using YNAB a few days and I already like it much better. I’m sure it will take a bit of getting used to, as I haven’t tried things like reconciling etc yet; but so far so good.
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Hi everyone, in Mvelopes (both v5 and v4) one could look inside an Envelope and see all the transactions from all accounts in that envelope. But in YNAB, although Categories are a similar idea, I can't quite figure out how to look inside a particular Category in a similar way that I used to in Mvelopes.
How can I view transactions in a particular Category ONLY?
Cheers, I'm still recovering
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Powder Blue Crab Go to that category on the budget screen and click on the activity number. That will bring up a pop-up with all of the transactions in that category for the month.
You can also bring up the all account view and filter the list by category. Just search the category name in the search bar.
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Tobias It works, IT WORKS! Now that you've shown me and I see it, it's so easy. Thank you so much! 👍😄
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