Hopefully back up in the not too distant future...sorry for the delay.
...and we're back. Thanks to Christopher!

Hi all,

Just a quick note to say that we're still here. After a few years of being incredibly busy on other projects, we're shifting our focus back to budgetEdge. What's funny is that even three years after launch (which is loooooooooooong in internet time), there's not much in the way of competition for forward-looking budgeting.

Also, apologies to those who had emailed and not heard back from us. We'll be better in the future.

Happy budgeting!

Hi all,

With Christmas leading into New Year's just around the corner, we thought that it would be a good time to let you know that we're planning to update some portions of the site over the coming months.

We've read your emails and in some cases spoken directly with you about what you'd like to see changed. Also, we've been busy designing value added financial tabs that can clarify your financial life even further.

Since we don't want to prematurely let our plans out into the wild, we're going to be a bit coy and say that you'll like the coming changes (some of which are subtle, so you may not notice them right away). Until then, we wish you the best holiday season possible and a very happy and prosperous 2009!

Hey Everyone,
A corollary to having lots of good news is that bad news is just around the corner...and here it is, I guess.

For a reason that only the little elf who lives inside of our server knows, the site went down after the host server hiccuped. At the moment, I'm optimistic that we won't be down for too long, but any amount of downtime is a pain in the butt for everone.

So until we get whatever this problem is fixed, we're going to have technical difficulties. Let's hope the elf is in a better mood soon.

Apologies all around. I'll post news as I get it.

UPDATE: We've narrowed down what's wrong with the server and are working to get the site back up ASAP.

UPDATE 2: And we're done. Wasn't our fault, it turns out. So now I'm going to publicly name and shame the party [our host server] responsible (Site5.com), I'm looking at you... For killing a half day's worth of customers' attempts to get to the site, you should be taken to task.

Once again, sorry everyone for letting you down. We'll start looking for a new hosting solution in the morning.

While I can't say that the budgetEDGE team is letting this free media go to our heads, I can say that the stars must be lined up in our favor this week.

We've just been named the Cool Site of the Day on the website of the same name (you can see the site here). The New York Times says that Cool Site is the arbiter of taste on the internet, so it's great to be noticed by them.

Since Cool Site plans it's featured sites a few weeks in advance, you'll have to wait until November 20th to vote for us there. But please do take a minute and go to Cool Site now and again on the 20th.

We hope that you'll help us to popularize budgetEDGE so that more people can understand what is happening to their money. We want to help you regain their financial freedom. That's our mission. Help us spread the word.

Thanks!

Well it's a good week here at budgetEDGE HQ.

When we checked the statistics for the site's traffic late last week, we found a sudden spike in traffic. After a little head-scratching and some research, we traced the root cause to a Pittsburgh area news clip that featured budgetEDGE and Wesabe as two of the best personal financial management sites on the internet.

Your budgetEDGE team loves free press, especially when it's good. You can watch the video segment here.

Ashley Diparlo and staff at WTAE Channel 4 in Pittsburgh, we thank you for helping show budgetEDGE to the world!

Recently someone asked to me write about zero based budgeting in budgetEDGE (zero based budgeting is the idea that you should allocate all of your money each month to some purpose, with nothing left over (hence the zero in the zero based budgeting)).

That's easy to do in budgetEDGE.

1) Enter your income and expenses as usual. If you have money left over it can be used for debt payoff (2) or savings (3).
2) Debt payoff: If you are carrying a balance on your credit cards or other term or revolving debt accounts, apply the residual there. budgetEDGE can track your declining balances for you.
3) Savings growth: If you are lucky enough to have no debt (or you simply choose to keep more of your money in interest bearing accounts), then apply your excess funds to savings. budgetEDGE will keep track of its growth.

The most important thing to keep in mind if you are going to follow this budgeting method is that your final residual balance will need to be managed very carefully because it will likely show negative numbers fairly often. You may find yourself transferring money from your savings account to your cash account regularly (something else the budgetEDGE can manage for you).

If you are ok with maintaining an active budgeting method (and are excited by the thought of additional yield on your idle cash), then zero based budgeting may be the right fit for you.

Try it now on budgetEDGE.