• Pros
  • I like that all the functionality is available online, anywhere you have access to a Flash 9 plugin.
  • It seems to be very well connected to banks, all of my banks and credit cards were easily found and it started getting transactions without any fuss.
  • I like the drag & drop of transactions to categories mvelopes.
  • Mobile access? Good idea!
• Cons
  • Though they claim to import Quicken data, they actually don’t. I tried to upload my file and it said the file was too large. I’ve been using Quicken for 5 years. My .QIF file is ~2MB. That’s not a very big file these days when Google gives away 3GB of space.
  • Even if I could’ve uploaded the file, it says the data won’t be used because Mvelopes “works differently”. You know how many categories I already want to use to track expenses??
  • Categorization is only two deep. So I can’t have ‘Pets – Medical – <Pet Name>’ as a hierarchy. Instead I have to create ‘Pets’, then ‘Cali – Medical’, ‘Toby – Medical’, ‘Jade – Medical’, ‘Sammy – Medical’, ‘Leo – Medical’.
  • Roll up expenses isn’t very easy, intuitive, or possible as far as I can tell.
  • No capability to keep track of your stock portfolio, stock options, or ESPP.
  • Any transfers, or payments, that end up with two actual transactions leave me with two transactions that I have no idea what to do with. I can’t classify the payment as a transfer to the credit card account, and I can’t classify the payment on my card as a payment from the bank. I wish I could explain this.
  • Can’t use Mvelopes to track tax data to import to TurboTax.
  • Can’t track assets, like our house.

Look, overall, Mvelopes it’s probably OK for the first time budgeter. But after using Quicken for so long, I can’t go back to this kind of basic functionality. I’m within my 30 day trial period, so I’ll be canceling my account. Oh, it sucks that you have to call to cancel your account – it’s an online application! Where’s the online account maintenance?

• Why I gotta ditch Windows:
  • The only reason I’ve been able to keep up with Windows is MSDN. I haven’t bought a Windows license, ever, except with a PC.
  • I’m certainly not going to upgrade to Vista (which is a different story on its own).
  • Windows is slow and bloated. A fresh install of XP seems to run OK, but with any service packs and patches, performance turns to sludge.
  • Microsoft (and vendors) have made Windows XP x64 a PITA as a desktop OS. Printer drivers, scanner drivers, everything is missing or incompatible.

• Why (I think) Linux is the way to go
  • I’ve been running my websites on LAMP (Linux, Apache, mySql, PHP) for over a year now, using only open-source software, and I love it.
    • (As a side note, at this point I’ve easily donated more to the software I use than I’ve actually spent buying software in more than 10 years.
  • No licensing fees, no crap-tacular activation “features”.
  • Most of the Linux distros have spent a lot of time on their UI and driver support to make sure Linux can be used a desktop OS.
  • I can still run Windows in a VM if I need particular Windows functions or applications.
  • I’m a geek – and geeks use Linux.

My biggest issue with this transition has been my extensive use of Quicken for the past five years. I’ve explored a few possibilities, which I will be blogging more about as I try, learn, and evaluate over the next few days, weeks, and months:

• KMyMoney – Free, open source, money management software for Linux.
• GNUCash – Free, open source, money management software for Linux.
• Mvelopes – Online budget management software (requires Flash 9)
• MoneyDance - Commercial money management software for Linux, Windows, and <ugh!> Mac.

Due to my experience with Quicken, the following applications were deemed not good enough for me, for various reasons:

• jGnash – Free software, no bank integration (QIF import only)
• Buddi – Free software, no bank integration (QIF import only)
• Yodlee! – Online bank & bill aggregator. Doesn’t help me budget and predict income & outflows.

I’d love to hear anyone else’s suggestions of what I can use to replace Quicken.

For now I’ve settled on Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy) 32-bit. I can run 64 bit with my CPU, but there are a few things that don’t seem to work well, like the Flash plugin for Firefox.

Enough for now. I’ll publish more when I have more to say.