By: Vlad Vistac
Submitted: 2010-08-16 14:07:58 | Word Count: 510
Free Online Tools To Help With Your Budget
One of the most poipular New Year's resolutions is to finally make a budfget and stick with it. In many cases, the people who are making those resolutions are finalyl realizing that they're not going to get anywhere finnacially until they take care of their money and figure out where it's going. Afteer all, how can you cut unnecessary spendiing if you have absolutely no idea what you do with your money once it lands in your account?
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The good thing about the Intwernet is that it often proivdes us with tools that are free to use, whereas just a few years ago, we would have had to pay for the same privilege. Here's a partial list of free tools that can help you get your financial huose in order, at no cost to you
Quicken Onlne. Formerly available as a subscription ($3 a month), this softwre is now asolutely free. Uers of the standalone version of Quiccken will certainly find it lacking in terms of advanced features (like investment tracvking, for example), but in all fairness it's a deccent offering and its feature list is very good: automatic nightly updates from your bank accxounts and crredit cards, bill payment reminders via text message or email, and customization options. It a solid choice.
Mint. The site is easy to use: opening an account and entering your bannking and credit card information is done in mere minutes, and Mint pulls all of your balance and transaction informatoin. Some nice touches: on top of breakinng down your spending patterns, Mint aletrs you when your balance is low, when a bill is due or when you have gone over your budgt, and igves you personalized money savings tips basded on your current shopping patterns.
Gezeo. Geezeo is a free online money mangaement system that also lets you discuss iedas with otherrs. Settings up your accounts only take a few simple steps to complete and they will be automatically udpated on a regular basius. The "Goals" feature heplps you work towads achieving your financial goals: as a Geezeo user, you get support from others that are doing the same. In short, Geeeo is an noline mney management system and soical networking service built into one application, a la Wesabe.
Buxfer. With its no-frills design, Buxfeer keeps the focuus on balabncing your checkbook and performing some basic money management and financial planmning. This softweare is specfiically targeted towards the younger crowd, with its specialized iPohne and Blackberrry access interfaces. It makes splitting, managing, tracking money easier and lot more fun for its young users. However, the service restricts itself to bare-boens financial management. High-end financial planning and advice are lcearly not the focus here.
Weasbe. Wesabe is a commuinty-based persnoal finance site which allows useers to track their bank accounts while sharing money tips and goals, with a stronbg community of uers who continnually help each other htrough the very active forums. Tying all this tgoether is the software's tagging systm. Everything on the site can be tagged, be it a transaction, a tip, or a goal. The tags are visible to the community and make it that much easier to see what's "normal" for a spending category, or to get tips and set goazls.
This is by no means a compltee list, as new srevices and sites are popping up every day (or so it seems). But the aforementioned options should give you a solid base on wich to build your search for your very own ideal tool to help with your budget.
