Personal Finance Blog | Money Management Blog | Financial Help

Recently I’ve been hearing a commercial on the radio from Chevron about “Better Mileage Tips.” Chevron advises,

“Simply decreasing your freeway speeds to 55 mph can increase your fuel economy by as much as 20 percent.”

I consider myself a driver who likes to keep up with “the flow” of traffic, and driving 55 mph on the freeway sounds insane! Come on–that’s almost suicide! I’ve passed cars that seem to be driving deathly slow (and they look like they’ll be driven off the road with the way everyone furiously passes them), but I would bet that even they aren’t driving THAT slowly. Maybe I’m a speed demon at heart, or just suffer from a lead foot, but when I first heard this ad I seriously thought, “Who are they kidding?” However, with the current gas prices, my more practical side wants to believe what Chevron has claimed.

I have decided to put their claim to the test! Can driving 55 mph on the freeway really save me money and better my gas mileage? We will soon find out!

I challenge everyone else out there to perform their own test and join my Finicity group, “Club 55 MPH.” I’ll post the details of my test there and plan to frequently give updates to the “Club 55 MPH” group forum.

If you want to, you can watch the video of the Chevron ad – it’s similar to the version I’ve been hearing on the radio. And here is a link to some of the other tips they’ve listed as well.

I’ll post my final results back here on the blog, so stay tuned!

Kristopher Higley, Designer

Yesterday, Finicity was named the 25^th fastest growing company in Utah by Utah Business magazine. Surrounded by very impressive companies (Omniture, Doba, Skullcandy) here in Utah, we’re excited to be part of Utah’s growth as a leader in technology. But more importantly, we’re excited for all of you, our customers, who are reaching your financial goals with our money management tools.

It’s at times like this where it’s fun to pause and take a walk down memory lane.

1999 - Company is founded under the name In2M

2002 – First product is launched. Mvelopes was originally a PC-based personal finance software product that synced with PDAs. The name Mvelopes came from combining “mobile” with “envelopes” (based on the traditional envelopes method of budgeting)

2004 – Mvelopes goes online and becomes a web-based money management system

2006 – Mvelopes is awarded PC World’s 2006 World Class Award

2006 – PC World names Mvelopes one of “The 100 Best Products of Year”

2007 – Company changes its name to Finicity (combining “finance” with “city” to represent a personal finance community)

2007 – Finicity partners with personal finance experts David Bach and Laura Rowley

2007 – Finicity named ninth fastest growing company in Utah

2007 – US Bank and Finicity partner to create Finicity Home Loans

2008 – Finicity.com is launched, offering its money management tools together with a community support system so users have what they need to reach their financial goals

Cheers,

The Finicity Team

The new Finicity site has been up for several weeks now. The design and development of the personal finance portal was an exciting process. We felt it was important to have a fresh new look for the site. Our goal from a design perspective was to create a very clean and appealing look that would also have a very user-friendly navigation.

Our customers have been asking for a more robust site where they can interact with other people and help each other accomplish their financial goals. The ideas for our groups, mentors, money tips, money mistakes and featured experts came from our users’ input.

Now that you have had some time to look through the site, we would really like to hear your feedback. What are your favorite sections? Is the site easy to navigate? What else would you like to see included that would help you on your path to financial freedom?

All the feedback, success stories, money tips and money mistakes that we have received so far have been great! We look forward to hearing even more from you!

Darren Ottley, Graphic Design

Since living within a budget is a good short-term and long-term investment, I’m always looking for tips to help me get a better return.

I have a good friend who has twin toddlers and a third one on the way. One day when I was visiting with him, he told me about how he and his wife do their grocery shopping. When they started using the Finicity Money Manager, they began to realize that they would have large swings in their grocery envelope. As they analyzed it, they realized they were making many stops at the grocery store to pick up items they ran out of. And each time they stopped, they always ended up buying more than just the things they needed.

Grocery Stores, can you please put the milk and eggs at the front of the store so we’re not tempted to buy other things?

As this happened more and more often, they began to exceed their grocery envelope. To fix this, they came up with a master list of items, both groceries and household items. At the beginning of each month, they started buying non-perishable items (enough for the whole month). It took a month or two for them to figure out the correct quantities, but once they got that figured out, they began to see results very fast. Now they’re saving both money and time.

Kyle Lloyd, Accounting

It amazes me how money touches almost every single part of our lives. If your finances are in disarray, it can affect the way you feel, act and think in a negative way. On the opposite spectrum, if your finances are in order and you have control over your money, it can impact you in a positive way. You feel like you can accomplish anything and that everything is swinging your way. I have mentioned before that my four-year-old daughter has been catching on to the way we handle money now and this, too, has affected her positively. I love it!

The other day we were driving home from Grandma’s and she started saying that she was hungry and that she wanted to go to McDonald’s for dinner. We set aside money each month for eating out, so normally this would have been fine. This month, however, we had unfortunately already depleted that envelope. What happened next was completely unexpected! We started to tell her that we didn’t need to go to McDonald’s because we were just going to make dinner when we got home. She quickly returned an answer and began the debate with us as to why she wanted, needed and deserved dinner from McDonald’s. Pretty much out of desperation, I decided to throw into the conversation the real excuse of how it wasn’t in the budget, completely thinking this logic wouldn’t phase her at all. But to our surprise she took the “grownup” excuse very well and simply said, “Oh, okay.” That was it. End of conversation and argument. My wife and I looked at each other, completely surprised. I mouthed, “wow,” and she just shrugged her shoulders. The rest of the drive home was great, to say the least! And that dinner was one of the best we’ve had in a long time. Once again, we owe it all to our trusty envelope budget!

Kristopher Higley, Designer

Recently I read a post on Laura Rowley’s Money and Happiness Blog about losing weight and getting rich. Since I am hoping to do both of those things, I thought I would try out the theory of creating a “Diet Diary.” The diet diary is supposed to help you be more aware of what you are eating. The same goes with your finances - the more aware you are of where your money is going, the more likely you are to save, invest, pay off debt, etc.

So, here is what I want to know – in addition to helping me lose weight, will recording everything that I eat also help me reduce my spending? I think that it just might! I already realized very quickly that paying $1.06 for a 32 oz coke was not only costing me 4 times the amount I pay for a can of Coke (which is $.25 if I buy a 12 pack on sale), but it’s also more than double the calories! Obvious, I know since it’s 32 oz compared to 12 oz, but I just hadn’t ever really thought about it until I saw it written down in my diet diary. So, here is what I started doing… if I plan to be in my car for a large portion of the day, I pack a little cooler with cans from home. I find that I usually drink a 12 oz can in the same amount of time that I would have, in the past, had the 32 oz fountain drink. I quickly and easily reduced my calories and my spending.

Of course, saving $.81 on Coke isn’t going to make me rich, but as they say, “every little bit adds up!” I wonder where else I will find an easy solution for cutting back on both money and calories. Do any of you have any suggestions?

Jennifer Streiff, Business Development

We’re excited about our new Money Trends and wanted to share our latest findings with you.

Where has personal spending been most impacted by the economic downturn?

Top 10 Most Economically Pinched States

10. Missouri

9. Illinois

8. Minnesota

7. New Jersey

6. Florida

5. Indiana

4. Nevada

3. New Hampshire

2. Ohio

And the most economically pinched state is…

1. Arkansas

Click here to see the Top 25

We’re excited to announce the new Finicity site (www.finicity.com) is officially live as of this morning. It’s been a fun journey over the past few months getting our social money management site ready for primetime.

It all started when we emailed you (our customers) a survey asking what you wanted, here’s what you told us:

First, you were interested in having personal finance experts on the site to provide articles and tips. So we’re excited to announce Laura Rowley (Yahoo! Finance columnist and well-known author) as our first expert on Finicity. Laura has a great approach to finances and to life, so we’re glad to have her on board. We’ll be announcing new experts very soon so stay tuned.

Second, you told us you wanted an online community where you could connect with other users, share success stories, offer advice and tips, and read more information on personal finance. We hope what we’ve added is a good start (support groups, user forums, money tips, money mistakes, etc.).

Third, you told us you wanted a Mentor program (experienced users helping other users). As we’ve been putting together this program, I’ve been impressed by your willingness to volunteer and help others reach their financial goals. I think this is one of the things that makes Finicity so unique…your willingness to help and support each other. When you think about reaching any goal in life, you need the right tool(s) and support system (whether it’s a coach, a mentor, a team, a support group, a friend, etc.). That is what makes what we’re doing together so powerful…so thank you and enjoy the new site!

Corey Davis, Marketing

As of today my wife and I are officially consumer debt free! We still have our new mortgage, of course (we got a great deal through Finicity Home Loans), but it is way more affordable now that we don’t have to worry about paying down the stupid consumer debt we had so quickly accumulated.

Our debt started with the mistake of applying for a Wal-Mart Credit Card to buy a $240 television a little over three and a half years ago. I reasoned with my wife that since it was 0% interest for 6 months, we could just pay a little each month until it was paid off. Now, I should mention that this was our very first credit card…ever. We were quickly lulled into the “Buy Now, Pay Later” mentality and we, of course, never got around to paying that card off in those first six months. Shocking, I know. And since we hadn’t paid it off, we got slammed with a 17.9% interest rate that was applied quickly to the ever-increasing balance. We would eat out and “put it on the card” here, and then buy some new clothes and “put it on the card” there, continuing to increase that balance. We then, falling further into the “Buy Now, Pay Later” trap, transferred the balance over to two cards with 0% interest for an additional year. Needless to say, things spun completely out of control and before we knew it we had accumulated well over $6,000 in credit card debt, and all in less than six months.

Thankfully, this was about the time we started using Mvelopes.

We quickly had our finances under control and were rapidly paying down our consumer debt using the debt roll-down principle. It wasn’t easy. It took a lot of determination and diligence, but we worked on it together as a team and that made a huge difference. We, of course, had some emergencies that slowed our progress and it took us nearly three years to pay it all off, but we did it!

I recently read an MSN money article “Your 5-minute guide to managing debt” and the closing statement really struck home:

“Whatever you do, don’t give up. You didn’t get into debt overnight, and you won’t get out that quickly. Getting out of debt takes time and patience, but it pays big dividends down the road.”

While it seemed to me that we got into debt overnight, the freedom that we now feel is the biggest and most valuable dividend of them all. We can’t wait to join the ranks of “Credit Deadbeats” as we no longer carry a balance and now pay off all of our cards in full each and every month with the help of the new Finicity Money Manager (formerly Mvelopes)!

Kristopher Higley, Designer