Managing all Your Money Envelopes With an App?
Getting married brings many new roles, relationships, and responsibilities; one of those is gifting. Once you are married you'll find yourself in the position to give 'shagun' at weddings, the birth of a new baby, and other auspicious occasions.
I for one love the culture of gift giving in Indian families. It's a way to celebrate and recognize all of life's occasions, but it can get hard to keep track of all of your gifting (and 'return gifting') obligations. How much did Sheila Aunty give you at your wedding again, you might wonder when her son gets married. Not necessarily because you don't want to 'over-gift', but also because you want to honour Sheila Aunty and give her kids the same financial head start that she gave you.
For all the reasons I mentioned above, I was thrilled when I stumbled onto an app called
Envylope recently. This app basically allows you to break down who gave you a monetary gift, how much it was for, and what the occasion it was right in the palm of your hand. This brilliant idea came from a newly married couple that was struggling with managing all the envelopes that come from a wedding themselves.
I checked in with one half (the better half maybe?) of the Envylope team Bandhna to share some of the back story for this app, and here's what she had to say...
PlanShaadi: What was the inspiration behind Envylope?
Bandhana (Envylope): Indian weddings involve a lot of money envelope giving and receiving. This seems to be prevalent in all countries amongst Indians! A lot of families I know (including mine) list this on paper or on excel. Personally, I used to pen all my envelope dealings in a notebook. One trip back home to Singapore, I left my notebook in London and had several weddings to attend in Asia. I wasn’t quite sure what to put in the envelope! I didn’t want to seem like a cheapskate and put less and I didn’t want to put something too “lavish” either. I usually like to give what I received, or give more to cover my cost of a reception dinner. But I always like reference. That trip made me realize how useful an App would be to store personal wedding money envelope transactions and have that information with you all the time! That’s how the idea of Envylope came about.
PlanShaadi: What are the benefits of the app for brides and grooms?
Bandhna (Envylope): As a wedding couple you would always want to organize your received finances and wedding gifts. Envylope makes it easy for you to create your own database of received money envelopes, vouchers and even gifts. We put an option for typing out a gift entry as some people do give wedding gifts and we want Envylope to be able to reflect your entire event. This allows the couple to always have a reference of what family and friends gave them when it’s time for them to return the favour. This is extremely useful when a friend gets married 2 or 3 years after you - with a quick search the information is at your finger tips.
As you know the PlanShaadi team is big on using technology to help plan a wedding and offer many planning tools for brides and grooms, so we love the idea of the
Envylope app!
Getting married brings many new roles, relationships, and responsibilities; one of those is gifting. We've found the perfect app to help you manage this new responsibility.