| A lot of people have no idea how much they spend on a monthly or sometimes even weekly basis, which leads to overspending and frequent debt. The solution is to control that spending, but the experts don’t always agree on the best way to accomplish that. Most companies in the personal finance space offer some type of expense tracking software, either online or on the desktop. And while all of them offer an important component to help control your spending – expense tracking – they often lack the tools and resources needed to make long-lasting changes in your overall spending behavior.
Over the past decade, Finicity has developed and improved its expense tracking software (formerly known as Mvelopes) to do more than just track spending. It’s based on envelope budgeting, and is designed to help users plan what to do with their money before it’s ever spent. The system works by allowing you to divide your income into different envelope categories (mortgage, utilities, food, etc.) and then spend based on what’s available in a given envelope. For example, if you fund your entertainment envelope at the beginning of the month (or whenever you get paid) with $100, you’ll have that much available to spend on entertainment until the next funding period. Once the $100 is gone, you’re done spending money on entertainment unless you take money from a different envelope, understanding that you’ll have less to spend in that category as a result.
Finicity has modernized the concept of envelope budgeting by linking the application to your online financial institutions (checking, savings, credit cards, etc.). You can manage your envelope balances from virtually anywhere (through any Internet-enabled device) and always know how much you have available to spend. This works wonders with the whole controlling your spending problem, because if you spend from what’s available in each envelope category, you’ll never spend too much. Granted, this takes patience and a certain amount of discipline, but thousands of people have had success with Finicity and are willing to help you through our online community. Oh, and one of the other benefits of Finicity’s expense tracking software? You’ll find that you not only uncover hidden spending with it, but you’ll often have money left over in certain envelopes each month, which you can then put towards savings, debt elimination, vacation or whatever you want!
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