Personal Finance Blog | Money Management Blog | Financial Help

We’re excited that Nicholas Thomas (Finicity co-founder and COO) will be speaking tomorrow at AJAXWorld in San Jose, CA about the future of Internet Software Services.

Here are some excerpts from his presentation.

Mark Wieser, former Chief Scientist at Xerox PARC, envisioned a world where computers provided services to us but did not command our full attention to derive value from them. He fathered the concept of a third era of computing following the Mainframe and PC eras called the Ubiquitous Computing era, where computers were invisible, everywhere, and with us in the real world. The good news? We have finally arrived in that era. The bad news? Internet Software Services need to do more to match Marks original vision.

Many software services on the Internet leverage advertising to generate revenue, but this business model requires its users to be glued to the computer screen to see and click through to other offered products or services. Premium Internet Software Services seeking to become truly ubicomp must free their users from the tyrannical attention-hogging PC-era and present just-in-time information (JITI) to their customers without the burden of clickthrough rates.

Because Fincity’s business model is subscription-based, the company can and is developing ubicomp solutions to enable its users with just the financial information they need at the time and place they need it most … when making the spending decision. Although after-the-fact reporting is helpful to analyze spending trends and past mistakes, Finicity seeks to give our customers the information they need at the point where the spending decision is made.

Finicity pioneered Rich Internet Applications with its first AJAX and WAP clients in 2004 and our Adobe FLEX client in 2006. We are now announcing the development of a new Adobe AIR client for PC, MAC, and Linux that will provide our customers with information they need at a glance without launching a browser. In addition, we are are exploring other ways to provide users with their personal financial information outside of company-developed software clients.

Cheers,

The Finicity Team

I’ve got a great job. I get to try to break things and find faults in the work of others and when I find these things I get to tell them all about how their code doesn’t work like it should. It’s very fulfilling.

Along with the great job I get a not so nice commute. I average 70 miles a day. This helps to keep my ego in check. Kinda like the “With great power comes great responsibility” line from Spiderman except that in my case I think it would be “With a great job comes great pain in the wallet”. The gas price increases over the past year have really added up and taken a bigger chunk of my budget, and I hate spending money on gas when I could spend that same money to buy tools for my woodshop.

So not being willing to find a job closer to home and needing to reduce fuel expenditures, I started researching things I could try to increase my fuel efficiency. Obviously, by increasing my miles per gallon I decrease my fuel consumption which then decreases my fuel budget requirements. This is what I have found so far:

• Slow down - The first thing I found was lowering my traveling speed. I used to average 75mph on the freeway. I’ve lowered that to 63mph. Sure it takes a little bit longer to get to work, but only a couple minutes, and if I leave 10 minutes earlier I still get to the office about the same time.

• Be cool and smooth – Don’t punch the gas when the light turns green, accelerate smoothly and slowly. Also, try to coast to a stop at red lights.

• Stay pumped up - I’ve also started checking my tire pressure every Saturday. This isn’t as much a benefit as driving slower but when you drive 20,000 miles a year just to and from work, every little bit helps. On top of helping with mileage, this step also helped to validate to my wife the purchase of an air compressor I had been wanting.

• Get some fresh air – When driving around town roll your window down instead of using the AC. When you hit the freeway, roll that window up and partake of the air conditioned goodness. At slower around-town speeds, you’re better with the window down. On the freeway, with the extra drag created by the open window, you’re better off to add a bit of strain on the engine and get the AC going.

• Dietary supplements – I’ve also been experimenting with different fuel additives that are supposed to increase the vaporization of fuel in your cylinders to get a cleaner, more efficient burn. I won’t say what I’ve been using in case it ruins my engine, but I’ve been able to gain another 10-12% mpg this way - while only spending about $4.00 for every 150 gallons of fuel treated.

Following these tips, I’ve been able to go from an average of 29.5 mpg to 37.2. Spend a few minutes on Google. There are lots of tips out there that can really add up to more gas in your tank and more money in your wallet.

Jeremiah Rodriguez, Software Quality Assurance

When my wife and I were married, neither of us had ever created or used a budget or even balanced a checkbook, for that matter. We were both, as Dave Ramsey says, “Free Spirits.” When I joined Finicity, over three years ago, I was very impressed with and excited about our flagship product, the Money Manager (formerly Mvelopes). So I quickly became the “Nerd” in our marriage, when it came to finances, kind of by default. It is crazy to think about how far we have come in that amount of time. Everyone wants a quick fix, that magic pill that will make all of their problems disappear into the ether. But the truth is, no matter what your problems are, or whatever it is you want to change in your life, it’s NOT going to be resolved immediately or happen overnight. Change takes discipline and continuous effort. I like the way Ramsey puts it—change is a “process” not an “event.”

Don’t get me wrong, we still have a long way to go in building our wealth, but we have made a lot of changes along the way. One of the things I was hoping would change in this process was my wife asking me (more…)

Take a moment and ask yourself, “How do I define financial success?”

We ran a survey on our site for a few weeks asking this same question and the overwhelming majority defined success as follows: not having to worry about money. This caught my attention…

Growing up, my assumption was if you have more money, you’re happier and you don’t have to worry about money as much. But I know people who are very wealthy who seem to be worrying about money all the time. And I know people who do not have a lot of money who seem to be constantly worrying about money.

I’ve learned that the amount of money someone has doesn’t determine the level to which he or she worries about money.  It’s really based on being in control of the money you currently have and then being able to reach short- and long-term financial goals. The hard part is just determining what those financial goals should be.

Here are the other answers that were available in the survey:

• Being out of debt
• Having 90 days of extra money in the bank
• Being able to retire early
• Having a million dollars in the bank

What’s your definition of success? Please share.

Cheers,

Corey Davis, Marketing

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