As many of you know, I am a major penny-pincher! There aren't many people who can pinch pennies as well as me. Sometimes, I take great pride in this and other times it's a bit of a nuisance because it's a little over-the-top. Either way, I like to know where my money is being spent, how it's being saved, and how much I have in the bank.
For years, I'd used Quicken to accomplish this task. With the switch to my Mac, though, I was hopeful that a better program was out there for me to use. I didn't like a few things about Quicken: it was very good at letting me analyze something but it couldn't help me see current spending very well; it was not very easy to move around in with all the pop-up windows to maneuver through; it was static and not dynamic; it was too fan-dangled and didn't just let me manage my finances.
For a while, I'd thought about going to an envelope system to feel more in control of my money (Quicken didn't make me feel in control). When I went to the Mac, I thought to look for an electronic envelope money recording system. I found two programs and decided to try Moneywell. It's only for Macs so you PC users might want to try the other program (I forget the name of it).
Moneywell is great! I say this only after a few months of wanting to throw the computer across the wall after using it! The most confusing aspect of it is that it operates on two levels: one that records transactions and one that virtually manages your money into "envelopes" (they use the word buckets). The first level is very easy to understand as it's very similar to Quicken or other standard programs. The second level is very challenging to wrap your head around. At first, I was trying to use their automated system of filtering money into the buckets, but I couldn't seem to make it work. Once I finally started to manually move the money into the buckets after each pay period, I finally understood the second layer, and the program worked beautifully.
I think the hardest thing about Moneywell is that it's very different operationally from Quicken. It's all on one screen. It's not report based. It's very intuitive. Now, you would expect this of Mac software since that's how the Mac works. Did I share the story about how I had to call Apple support b/c I couldn't find out how to import my pictures after not finding the camera plugged in on the equivalent of "My computer?" Turns out, you just need to open the picture manager. Ahhhhh....no need to go do it yourself; they've already done it. Moneywell's very much the same way. They've made things very simplistic but very, very informative.
All that being said, I highly recommend the program. It's a great buy. Give yourself time to re-learn how to use money software if you're coming from Quicken. Make sure you utilize the support forum; it's very, very helpful and the creator is quick to reply to questions. I guarantee it will help you with financial decisions as it's incredibly informative about how much money you have and what bucket it's allocated to.
***Note to original post: There were problems with the original release of the latest version. So much so that I am still working in the old version. When I was trying to work through the problems, the creator was quick to reply to all the threads of messages about problems. I have no doubt that they fixed everything; I just haven't taken the time to upgrade again.
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