Quick Review of NeoBudget

A few days ago I ran across NeoBudget.com, a very low-cost online system for envelope budgeting. I've given it a quick tour, and there are a number of promising elements, but I don't think it's at a point yet where I could use it for day-to-day budgeting. Your mileage may vary -- read on!

Overview

NeoBudget.com has many of the basic elements of envelope budgeting figured out. It was very simple to set up a checking and a savings account, enter in current balances, set up envelopes, and assign amounts to envelopes. Entering transactions was fairly straightforward as well. When entering a transaction into an account you are presented with your list of envelopes and their current holdings, and you can enter which envelope (or envelopes) the money for that transaction should come from. Splitting a transaction between envelopes is simple as well -- there's a handy "remainder" section that tells you how much is left between the total amount of the transaction and the amount(s) identified in the envelopes so far.

NeoBudget also has something that's fairly standard in envelope budgeting - the ability to save allocation amounts for your paychecks. You can identify an income source, a frequency (every two weeks, twice a month, monthly, etc.), an income amount, and an allocation of that income into your different envelopes. When payday comes around you can pick your saved allocations and NeoBudget does the allocation for you.

The Good

Security. Unlike many other online services, NeoBudget does not require you to provide it with your personal banking details. It is possible for you to upload online banking information, but NeoBudget requires you to download the information yourself, which you then upload into NeoBudget. This made me feel more secure -- I'm nervous about providing this sort of personal information.

Low Cost. NeoBudget costs a mere $2.50 per month (less if you do six- or twelve-month subscriptions). Even better, you can try it out without providing *any* payment information, so you don't have to worry about missing the end of your trial period and being on the hook.

Easy Setup. I've been at this envelope budgeting for a while now. I've got a big spreadsheet tracking how much I've got in each envelope. You would think that the one thing envelope budgeting systems would have down is an ability to start up, enter in information about all of your envelopes, with an initial balance for each. You'd be wrong. Fortunately for NeoBudget, this setup is very simple.

Active Developer. The latest update to NeoBudget came just a few days ago, with the launch of a mobile version. From what I can tell, NeoBudget is a one-man show, but he's an active developer.

The Less than Good

No Resolution. While the ability to be able to upload transactions is nice, I take the time to enter transactions manually, so that I don't have to worry about the lag time between buying something and having it show up online, so that I can enter payee information that makes sense, and so that my wife and I are on the same page. What I use online transactions for is to verify that I've entered transactions correctly, and to verify that I didn't miss anything.

I tried this with NeoBudget -- entering a couple of transactions, and then uploading information about those and a couple of others -- but there's no facility for matching the uploaded transactions with the ones that I entered manually. I wound up with duplicate transactions. Bummer.

No Recurring Transactions. Again, I like to plan ahead, so having my bills in a schedule is nice. I didn't see that feature in NeoBudget.

No "Frequently Added" Transactions. While NeoBudget does automate the allocation of income into envelopes, when entering transactions you've got just some text boxes. Again, I like to be able to enter transactions manually, so it would be nice if I could just type in "Unocal" (even better, just "uno" and it would figure out "cal"), and perhaps even remember that the amount should come out of the "Gas" envelope.

Dream List

NeoBudget allows you to have multiple accounts (e.g., checking, savings), and a different set of envelopes for each. For occasional expenses, like property tax or car repairs, I like being able to save the money in savings, and then move the money over to checking when I need to use it. This way I can make at least a couple of bucks on the money. It would be awesome if NeoBudget simplified the accounting of envelopes across accounts.

Overall

NeoBudget is easy to set up and is super low cost. If you're new to budgeting and you already rely on online banking to keep your checkbook for you, then it might be just the thing you need to get started taking control of your finances. The addition of a few key features would make NeoBudget truly great.

iBudget?

Any real alternative to Quicken has to support individual budgets for individual months. For example, my power bill ebbs and flows with the season. Likewise the water bill - no need to water during winter in the Pacific Northwest. Property taxes are due once a year - sure, I save up all year long, but I only pay it out in November. In the words of Dave Ramsey, we're not working with "the perfect budget from heaven," but rather where is this month's money really going?

So far, the programs that I've looked at both start with 'i' - iBank (downloaded) and iCash (just looked at manual). And, both of them assume monthly budget amounts - i.e., the same for all months of the year. That makes them both non-starters. Boo!

And I found a blog post that says the iBank has very limited online data downloading. Again, boo.

iBank has a cool domain name

Google just served up an ad for iBank using this domain name - www.thequickenkiller.com. Cool.

I too am looking to evaluate an alternative to Quicken. Totally unrelated to this domain name, however, I think while Tom's checking out MoneyWell, I'll check out iBank. More news when it happens...

iCash

Here's another Quicken alternative: iCash. As usual, I have no experience with it - yet, but one thing that's interesting is that it's cross-platform: it supports Mac and Windows. And it looks like that cross-platform support is real in the sense that it's the same program running on both platforms rather than distant bastard cousins.

MoneyWell

I just stumbled across MoneyWell in a story on Ars Technica reminding us that Quicken Financial Life for Mac still hasn't shipped. I watched their introduction video, and from what I can tell, the program is centered around a modern, electronic version of the envelope system from tracking expenses - i.e., budgeting made easy. There is a free trial, it might be worth checking out soon - I'd like to switch off Quicken Mac 2006 at the end of the year.

Another Free Program

I just ran across Mjrz.net on Fresh Meat. From the web page, it "is a free, open source Personal finance software application. It is designed for home and small business users with simple interface and fast user interaction. It is safe and secure with password based encryption for storing all financial data." Beyond that, in the words of Sgt. Shultz, "I know nothing."

Alternatives

We really don't want to switch from Quicken on the Mac, but at some point you have to start eying the exits, even if you don't actually bolt from the room.

Before the rumors of a new version came out at MacWorld, I was seriously considering running the Windows version of Quicken under VMware Fusion, which I already own and love. My biggest reason for not pulling the trigger on that was I didn't want to deal with another data conversion - I abandoned Quicken 2004 for the PC shortly before it was de-supported for online transactions.

Here are some applications I've stumbled across on the web. I haven't used any of them, but would love to hear from you if you have used them or know of any others.

• iBank - www.iggsoftware.com/index.php
• Moneydance - moneydance.com/mac
• Cha-Ching - www.midnightapps.com
  

Tom: For a while I tried out Mvelopes, an online money management system. At the time that I checked it out (a year and a half ago), it seemed very promising. It supports the "envelope" method of budgeting, so you're planning on where your money will go, instead of after the fact seeing where it went. It links into your bank's online system, so you don't have to do any data entry.

The downside for me at the time was that it's an Ajax application (like Google Docs), and the computer I had at the time (an original 'desklamp' iMac) just didn't quite have the horsepower to run all of the Javascript cleanly. Mvelopes needs you to drag different transactions into different envelopes, and the dragging just didn't work smoothly.

The other problem with Mvelopes is that, by relying on your bank's online system, there's going to be some unknown amount of lag time between when you buy something and when it gets taken out of the respective envelope. This might work okay if you're the only one spending your money, but like Charles, I'm married, and my wife is the one who spends most of our day-to-day expenses (groceries, gas, etc.). She needs to be able to look at a bottom line and get an accurate picture of what's left in the tank.