YNAB You Need A Budget

[thefish30]

Anybody know anything good or bad about www.pncvirtualwallet.com?

[Mshag]

i cant speak good or bad about the site. But if your looking for a higher interest rate savings account smarty pig has the highest i seen so far. It's where i keep my emergency fund.

[bmackrell]

Hello. I work for PNC and I noticed your question about Virtual Wallet. Obviously I would recommend it!

Seriously though, if you have not already done so, I would encourage you to visit http://www.pncvirtualwallet.com. You will find a lot of information about Virtual Wallet on the site, as well as demos and customer feedback. You can also follow us on Twitter at @PNCVWallet, call us, email us or stop in your local branch for more information.

If you are an existing PNC customer, it is free to switch to Virtual Wallet from your existing free checking account and you should actually find the process very simple. Virtual Wallet includes a Growth Account which features a high yield savings rate and tools to help you get started saving. I am not sure if you are a student, but we recently released Virtual Wallet Student, which offers some college-specific features and functionality - check out http://www.pncvirtualwallet.com/student.

I hope you find this helpful!

Bryan

[Carl Fredricksen]

I looked it over and watched all their demo's and it looks pretty cool. Defiantly a Generation Y account.It didn't quite do everything I needed for our household budget, but have told my wife about Virtual Wallet for her small business. I think I will also use it for my teenage daughter, as it is something she would like as well. Props to PNC for breaking the mold for the traditional Brick and Mortar's.

[thefish30]

It was the shiny "Gen Y", as you put it, interface that caught my attention. On looking closer, I think YNAB is already doing for me everything that I'd like from P/N/C. Except for the calendar. *sighs wistfully* But I'd recommend it for it's money tracking features to someone who wouldn't look at a program.

It looks like P/N/C has people or bots out trawling for interest. I'll have to remember that in the future when referring to outside businesses.

[ladyblacksun]

I got a virtual wallet account earlier this month (I'm not affiliated with PNC in any way). So far the interface is nice, but mostly I like the 3-account system it uses: spending (checking), reserve (checking), growth (savings). I'm still on step 1 here at YNAB, so I'm trying to spend from spending, and at the beginning of the month putting my "emergency savings" budget into reserve, where hopefully I'll be able to NOT touch it. If I do have money problems, it's nice to have a free rollover of that reserve money into spending to cover any overdraft issues. And their online quick transfer tool that shows you your balance between spending/reserve and lets you slide it to move funds between the two accounts. At the end of the month (this will be my 1st full month) I will take whatever's left in reserve and add it to growth (which is interest bearing), and the new "savings" amount will go into reserve.

I like that PNC is actually seeming to want to work with those of use who are living paycheck-to-paycheck and need some help starting with real budgeting/savings and need a good plan with free accounts. My last bank I seemed more of a bother since I could never manage to keep the accounts above the $100 minimum to keep them free. But I'm sure they loved my fee money and overdraft money!

Only negative I have with the system so far is that PNC's online bill pay writes the checks but leaves the money in your account floating there until it's cashed, just like a personal check. While it does show you these uncleared items on your VW calendar, it doesn't show them in your available balance on the mobile phone or ATM. Which most people wouldn't have an issue with if they've always written checks and have a register, but when I was with Commerce (now TD) the online bill pay took the money from my account immediately, so I didn't have to worry about accidentally spending it, and I never wrote personal checks so my available balance was my balance (except for visa check card items that hadn't shown up yet). Now at PNC I got around this by opening another free checking account just for paying bills. The beginning of the month (I'm paid monthly) the money gets automatically transferred to billing, and the next day the bill pay kicks in and sends everything off. Since it's insulated from my spending I don't have to worry about spending what I actually don't have if a check hasn't cleared yet.

[Koenigcitizen]

I have PNC VW. I like it a lot, but I dont use it to the full potential. YNAB does everything I need it to. My PNC VW reflects my YNAB. Growth holds the emergency fund, Reserve holds money that I save towards insurance, larger purchases etc, and Spend is spending money

[Uncle-Pennybags]

Hi,

First post here and I am not affiliated with PN/C either (other than having a virtual wallet account)

I am still working on building my buffer and hope to have that done in the next few months. I have been a VW user for just over a year and was thinking about how I would use the 3 accounts with the YNAB system. Today my direct deposit goes directly to my reserve checking account and we are transferring money as needed to spend. The savings account (growth) is not really used at this time as I also have a money market account.

What I envision is that we would keep the direct deposits going into the reserve account and using that to store my buffer during the month. That checking account collects interest which is a bonus but not the deal breaker. Once my buffer is built I was planning on transferring the amount I budget in YNAB to Spend on the first of the month and draw down from there for the month. In the meantime reserve would grow through the month through direct deposits and any other money coming in. So my thinking is to use reserve for inbound money and spend for outgoing. Transferring money at the beginning of the month to spend for just budgeted items will allow us to not only budget to $0 but to spend to that as well due to the overdraft protection that is inherent in VM through having all of those accounts linked. This would give us better indication just how much money is left in our budget and keep us from overspending.

I am still trying to figure out whether to use the growth account for my rainy day funds or for an emergency fund. My thoughts are that it would likely serve a better purpose as a "rainy day" storage area. And then I would use my Money Market account to store the EF. That way I have quick access to the funds should I need to spend from the "Rainy day" funds.

I hope this helps and would love to hear your thoughts!

[MALMomma]

Interesting. Seems like a revved up Gen-Y ING. I'll stick with my Electric Orange. I can have multiple accounts, instant transfers from those accounts to each other, electric check writing, great interest, bill pay, bill pay reminders, etc. etc. etc.

[bfackrell]

I’m NOT happy with my choice to open a Virtual Wallet account. Let me start by saying that as an ‘older’ consumer (I’m 40…Old compared to the target group, I guess) this is something that I’ve wanted for many years. I was so happy when I saw that my bank was offering this service. The reason I’m NOT (with all capitals) pleased is the poor service that I’m getting from PNC in an attempt to get my VW working properly. Since opening my account I have not been able to schedule upcoming bills. First I emailed support and they replied with a totally unrelated response (I must have confused them) so I replied with a more clear description of my problem and they replied with a telephone number to call. I called the number and was asked for my phone number so that technical support could call me back. That was six days ago and still no call from them. They did tell me that it could take up to five days . Wow! That is what I call customer service gone completely wrong.

[Koenigcitizen]

I’m NOT happy with my choice to open a Virtual Wallet account. Let me start by saying that as an ‘older’ consumer (I’m 40…Old compared to the target group, I guess) this is something that I’ve wanted for many years. I was so happy when I saw that my bank was offering this service. The reason I’m NOT (with all capitals) pleased is the poor service that I’m getting from PNC in an attempt to get my VW working properly. Since opening my account I have not been able to schedule upcoming bills. First I emailed support and they replied with a totally unrelated response (I must have confused them) so I replied with a more clear description of my problem and they replied with a telephone number to call. I called the number and was asked for my phone number so that technical support could call me back. That was six days ago and still no call from them. They did tell me that it could take up to five days . Wow! That is what I call customer service gone completely wrong.

I am surprised to hear that. I have been a PNC customer for some time, and I deal with them a lot. Car loan, credit card, etc etc. Had some issues down the way, but everything was always taken care of oh so promptly. I have always had A plus customer service. That's a shame.

[bfackrell]

I am surprised to hear that. I have been a PNC customer for some time, and I deal with them a lot. Car loan, credit card, etc etc. Had some issues down the way, but everything was always taken care of oh so promptly. I have always had A plus customer service. That's a shame.

I did get my call back earlier today but the person I spoke with was still baffled. She did mention that there are other issues similar to mine with VW. She is going to dig deeper and get back to me by tomorrow.

I guess these are growing pains that are to be expected with a new software application but the problem is that they are dealing with my personal finances so I would expect quicker service at the very least.

[bfackrell]

I am surprised to hear that. I have been a PNC customer for some time, and I deal with them a lot. Car loan, credit card, etc etc. Had some issues down the way, but everything was always taken care of oh so promptly. I have always had A plus customer service. That's a shame.

I did get my call back earlier today but the person I spoke with was still baffled. She did mention that there are other issues similar to mine with VW. She is going to dig deeper and get back to me by tomorrow.

I guess these are growing pains that are to be expected with a new software application but the problem is that they are dealing with my personal finances so I would expect quicker service at the very least.

Just as a courtesy update for those considering opening a PNC Virtual Wallet account. (See the posts above for a history)

PNC was supposed to contact me on Aug 5 concerning this ongoing issue. It is Aug 11 and I have still not heard from them.

I beleive that this is becoming a valid case for the FTC. More to come....

[ladyblacksun]

I’m NOT happy with my choice to open a Virtual Wallet account. Let me start by saying that as an ‘older’ consumer (I’m 40…Old compared to the target group, I guess).

I'm 40 too, so age ain't got nothin' to do with it. I am, however, a software developer so I may be more tech-savvy than you, but you may be a computer genius who is having an account issue.

Just a question, how are you trying to schedule the bills? is it an issue with e-bills or just adding a recurring payment or single payment? I haven't had any issues, I added the recurring payments as soon as the account was fully set up (it took several days to set up the account) and they were sent as expected on the scheduled day. I was happy to find that it was so easy to change the source account of the checks, that I didn't have to re-do them from scratch.

The only issue I've had so far is with e-bills (electronic bill statements), in that I can't seem to figure out how to associate my recurring payments with the e-bill. I paid it, it just doesn't think I paid it. I haven't contacted support for this though, since it's a small issue and I'm just trying to reduce the paper mail coming to my house and it's doing that.

[malisab]

The only issue I've had so far is with e-bills (electronic bill statements), in that I can't seem to figure out how to associate my recurring payments with the e-bill. I paid it, it just doesn't think I paid it. I haven't contacted support for this though, since it's a small issue and I'm just trying to reduce the paper mail coming to my house and it's doing that.

This sounds similar to ING Direct. You can have e-bills for certain bills sent through there, you view the bill and check off how much and when you want to pay it. But not every bill I pay is available as an e-bill. For those, I have to set up recurring payments. They're two separate systems.

Just thought my two cents may help. I'd bet they're both using Yodlee's back end.