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Integrate an "envelope" style budgeting system (edited)

David Lyons

I'm trying to transition over to Simplifi from Mvelopes, and it seems impossible to implement a basic envelopes approach to budgeting here. I'd love to see Simplifi make it possible and easy to do steps 2-5 below:

1. Calculate the net total of my accounts. (Checking + Health Savings + Petty Cash – Credit Cards)

2. Allocate that total amount into my saving and spending envelopes according to my current envelop balances.

3. Do the same for monthly income according to my monthly budget.

4. Allocate every subsequent expense to one of those envelopes. (If there is not enough in the envelope, either don’t spend it or reallocate enough from another envelope.)

5. Roll over envelope balances at the beginning of each month.

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Spending Plan

Feature Request

Status: Active

Comments

Coach Natalie

Hello @David Lyons,

Thank you for posting your suggestions to the Community!

I have gone ahead and turned this into an Idea post so that other Users can vote on it. Please be sure to add your vote as well!

-Coach Natalie

nunuyorker

@Coach Natalie
the voting doesn't work

+1 on the idea. However, it'd be great for the "envelope" to be integrated with spending plan. I.e. persistence spending plan that doesn't reset every month/roll-over spending plans

Coach Natalie

Hello @nunuyorker,

Sorry about that; the voting should now be active!

-Coach Natalie

ccrawford

Yeah this is a must-have. I probably won't stick with Simplifi for too long unless they add this. Envelope budgeting is truly the best way to budget.

J. Morgan

Yes please!

Jeppedy

I do something similar, and I think the key is the envelope rollover, right? Perhaps also is that your budget amounts (what you put into an envelope) varies monthly. It's basically a monthly (weekly?) budget, that changes every month/week based on income and expenses and remaining cash, right?

Breraus

The envelope method is the tried and true way to keep from over spending. It’s also very simple. Would love to see this capability added to the app.

Flopbot

@David Lyons

This would be a great addition to Simplifi! Please do consider something like this. Ideally, it would be something you can turn on/off, perhaps.

elmo218

Please add this features!!

Rossco1182

I completely agree with this. I was using You Need A Budget (YNAB) and love this approach to budgeting. When YNAB raised their prices, not a lot in the long run, I wanted to see if there were other options out there. I looked around and did research and didn't really see anything that I thought I would like as much as YNAB but really liked some of the features of Simplifi so thought I would give it a shot. As of today I have resubscribed to YNAB and will not be renewing my Simplifi unless this feature is added. I didn't realize how beneficial and how much I liked that envelope method until I let it go. I would love to stay with Simplifi for all the other features it offers that YNAB does not but until this is an option it is a deal breaker for me. Simplifi and Quicken I would love to come back and I will track this but for now I have to say I will use you later.

JerryBoor

I'm with Rossco1182. You state in some of your advertisements that you support envelope, zero-based budgeting, but I don't see it. You probably don't even monitor this, so we are speaking to the air! I used Quicken for about 25 years and it only helped me know what I had ALREADY spent. It was practically USELESS for real budgeting! Then I discovered YNAB, but the cost is getting ridiculous, though it is a great product. I thought maybe you had learned better and had the digital envelope budgeting method, but I sure can't find any info on how to set it up, IF you have it! I will not be extending my 30-day free membership unless you show me how to get a workable plan on Simplfifi for envelope budgeting!

Flopbot

Hi @JerryBoor

While I don’t have a great answer to the ‘Envelope System’ request - I haven’t figured out one yet either - I did want to welcome you to Simplifi and share this post with you. As a former Quicken Desktop user who’s considering Simplifi, you might find it helpful/interesting. To sum up the post: The trajectory for Simplifi is up while Quicken Desktop declines.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/2881/whats-better-for-me-simplifi-or-quicken

Also, just to reassure you, Simplifi support definitely does a very nice job of monitoring and responding to questions and issues raised in this community.

[edited tag to remove email address]

Coach Natalie

Hello @JerryBoor,

Thanks for sharing your feedback with the Community!

Since this post is a request for an envelope style budgeting system, I'd suggest creating a separate post in the appropriate Community category outlining what specifically you'd like to see in Simplifi by way of budgeting so that we can take a closer look from there, and see what solutions we may be able to find for you.

-Coach Natalie

rrodwell

+1, would love to see something like this integrated into Simplifi as a proactive way of budgeting. Having the ability to virtually organize money into buckets could be a great extension of the spending plan or goals. @Coach Natalie has there been any traction here lately? Thanks!

Flopbot

This post might be helpful for some of those interested in this idea. It includes the multiple ways I found to do “Envelope Budgeting” in Simplifi. Granted there isn’t any set/built in method for doing envelope budgeting in Simplifi.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/10521/my-favorite-things-food?utm_source=community-search&utm_medium=organic-search&utm_term=envelope

rrodwell

Thanks, @Flopbot! Definitely an interesting approach. I follow a similar process as your method #2, where my food expenses come from a separate account. While Simplifi’s spending plan, as well as the watch lists, are great at tracking the expenses for a certain category, in my opinion they are very much focused on budgeting in the moment.

I have to use another app named DAS Budget to help plan ahead in my case. This is very similar to YNAB but both apps are subpar compared to Simplifi. I really would like to be able to fund my envelopes over the course of the month or set money aside for a purchase so I know the money is there when that bill comes around.

Simplifi definitely has all of the information needed and even could reuse UI elements from the Spending Plan for the Buckets. Just would be nice to have a full suite of tools in one app to help organize your money ahead of time vs just tracking in the moment.

DryHeat

@rrodwell

I think it would be hard for QS to incorporate an actual envelope-style system if all of the existing mechanisms remain active. There is a lot of conflict of purpose and possibility for confusion. (Can you use both Planned Spending and Buckets? How would Savings Goals work with the new system? Should Recurring Bills allow you to select whether they are Bills, Subscriptions, or destined for a specific Bucket?)

I suppose they could make it an elective feature, where turning on one "budgeting method" turns off the other. I doubt that will happen, but I guess it could. They have a lot of development time invested in the current way of doing it, though.

Don't take any of this as a hit on Spending Plan… I like it and it provides all the information I need to manage my spending. But I can see that it may not have the psychological heft of the envelope system when it comes to "enforcing" spending limits. And that extra encouragement has obviously benefited a lot of people.

rrodwell

@DryHeat, great feedback but don’t think it would be as difficult as you may think. I would keep the different budgeting strategies separate and let them operate independently while just using the same transaction data. Both could run side by side IMO.

Savings Goals are already essentially “buckets”, just let us create more on top of a checking account and add automated funding schedules based on due date for that bucket.

As for the Spending Plan, I’d leave it as is because categories in the planned spending could be items spent from one or multiple buckets. Ie a single food bucket that was used for groceries and dinging out. Same goes for reoccurring bills. We would just need a way to assign the individual “transactions” to a bucket so it could keep a running total of what’s left.

Either way, not hating on QS. It’s a fantastic app and the quality really out shines the others on the market. Just think it would be awesome to have another suite of tools within the same app to help encourage better financial habits!