Chris Peterson

When I advocated some money management tools levering the bracketing effect in “Saving With Shoeboxes” I thought I was taking some obscure academic research and applying it in a novel, original way.

I should have known better.

Commenter “kevin” pointed me to mvelopes, an online third party money-management service that provides little envelopes in the way I described. Googling it, I found the Wikipedia page for “envelope system.” Turns out that, like so many things, our ancestors knew something we didn’t. The envelope system has been around for cash management since the 1930s.

There are several applications that will bring the bracketing effect to your banking. Someone even wrote a spreadsheet for it.

Check them out – and thanks Kevin!