Spendji homepage updated - get ideas, get going

Things continue to roll along here at Spendji Central.  New people are adding more spending plans every day, and the sheer variety of activities being handled on the site continues to grow.

We've been getting a lot of feedback along the lines of "hey, Spendji sounds great, but I am not sure what I want to do" or "I could really use this, but the plan I had in mind is still a ways off."

So, we've moved our spending plan tag cloud up to our homepage to serve two purposes:

(1) New visitors get quick ideas on activities to plan, and can immediately take advantage of the Spendji's community's collective knowledge to create a budget list to start.  Even if your activity is months away, it never hurts to start getting organized.

(2) Broadcast what kind of activities and projects are currently most popular among Spendji users.

You can seize the day, get a plan going and rope in whomever you need to help right away.  It could be that trip with friends you've been putting off since it's usually so tough to organize, or that home improvement, where having a solid budget would really help out these days.

And a tip of the hat to one of our favorite sites, 43 Things, for the inspiration here!

By the way, if anyone is going to be in Michigan today (Thu, June 19th), drop by a little launch celebration we are holding at Centaur in downtown Detroit from 5-8pm.  Just let us know first at contact[at]spendji[dot]com.

Spendji now helps you figure out your budget

Today, we launched new functionality that helps you figure out what you need to spend.  And our technology just gets smarter as more and more people use Spendji.

Using simple tags to describe your activity (like, say, 'wedding', 'trip' or 'reunion'), we give you a head start by recommending budget items you may want to include in your spending plan.  Then, where we have sufficient data, we provide estimated amounts you could spend on the items you have added.

While we provide a lot of "expert" budget data, these recommendations are mainly based upon the collective user base's activities.  So they will get more complete and accurate over time, as our community and database grows.

In summary - people will be able to increasingly benefit from each others' experience on Spendji.

Of course, you can also use our product and travel search functions to research prices on what you need for your activity.  More about those later...

Not sure where to even begin on creating a budget for your activity, or just need some ideas and inspiration?  Check out the new features.

Tales of Spendji, Part One

Since our "soft" launch last month, traffic has been building and our user base is growing nicely.  Thanks and welcome to all our new users!

We've been amazed by the large variety of activities and projects people have been planning on Spendji so far.  Everything from family reunions and camping trips, to children's bedroom remodeling and company picnics.  People are even using it for things we did not originally expect, like managing a shopping list or a personal job search.

From time to time we'd like to share how people are using our site, since you could create a spending plan for pretty much anything.

Have an interesting project or activity you are using Spendji to plan and manage?  Please let us know.

Spendji is live and ready to go

Well, at long last, Spendji is open to everyone!  Thanks again to everyone who has given us great feedback to date.

Apologies that we could not accommodate everyone in the private testing period, but you can join us now and start budgeting for and planning your next activity!  Sign up is very fast and free.

Be on the lookout for new features and improvements (we'll usually write about them here).  We are still in beta, so please do not hesitate to let us know when you encounter any issues by posting at our support forum.

Having a Spending Plan

Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback thus far!  We're feverishly cleaning up remaining items so we can open up Spendji to more people soon.

We think any successful project, activity or event begins with having a spending plan.  At a basic level, as you can probably guess, this is a list of items that form the financial budget for what you what to accomplish.  But with Spendji, it's a lot more than that.

Just having a list of numbers on a page doesn't really help you achieve much - you need to be able to collaborate with the other people involved to get things done.  So a spending plan in Spendji is integrated with a lot of simple, but powerful tools to help out.

For instance, say you are having a reception for your group.  You know you need a location for your event, but how do you coordinate deciding what to spend, then finding a place, booking it, and paying for it when there's many people involved?  Spendji helps pull all this information together for you in a way that's transparent to the team, reducing confusion and stress all around.  Ditto for all the other items you need to take care of to pull this shindig off.

What on earth is Spendji??

You may ask, what is this Spendji anyway?  It's a brand new website that helps you plan your spending and manage all the details for activities, events, projects and general mayhem (well, avoid the general mayhem perhaps).

Use it for yourself, or collaborate with friends, family, colleagues and groups you belong to.

No more "did we get everyone to agree on the location or not?"  No more "this kitchen renovation is costing way too much, am I in over my head?"  No more "but I thought you were supposed to pay the caterer."  No more "did Uncle Bob chip in his share yet?"

Family reunions, home improvements, weddings, vacations, parties, etc. - Spendji will help you budget for, plan and manage them.

Our approach to any good outcome starts with creating a Spending Plan, and that's what makes our site unique.  More on those later.

Welcome to Spendji!

Hello, my name is Arpan Patel, and we are really excited to be rolling out Spendji soon!  We've been working hard on it for the past several months and are starting to invite people into our private beta to help get it ready for primetime.

Several of you have been asking to check it out - rest assured, you'll have access soon and you can let us have it with the feedback - thanks for being patient, it's a small crew over here!

We would love to hear from you on your experiences and welcome your input and expertise to help make Spendji better for everyone.

We are in a short private beta period.  If you are interested in being a beta user, please request an invite on our homepage.