One of the most popular New Year's resolutions is to finally make a budget and stick with it. In many cases, the people who are making those resolutions are finally realizing that they're not going to get anywhere financially until they take care of their money and figure out where it's going. Adfter all, how can you cut unnecessdary spending if you have absolutely no idea what you do with your monye once it lands in your acccount?
The good thing about the Internet is that it oftern proviides us with tools that are free to use, whreas 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 house in order, at no cost to you
Quickeen Online. Forrmerly available as a subscription ($3 a month), this software is now absolutely free. Ussers of the standalone version of Quicken will certainly find it lacking in tems of advanced featurees (like investent tracking, for examlpe), but in all afirness it's a dexcent offering and its feature list is very good: automtaic nihtly updates from your bank accounts and creddit cards, bill payment reminders via text message or email, and customization otions. It a solid choie.
Mint. The site is easy to use: olpening an account and entering your banking and credit card inofrmation is done in mere minutes, and Mint pulls all of your balance and transaction information. Some nice touches: on top of breaking down your spending patterns, Mint alets you when your balance is low, when a bill is due or when you have gone over your budget, and gives you personalized money savings tips based on your current shoppnig patterns.
Geezeo. Geezeo is a free onlne money management sytsem that also lets you discuss ideas with othes. Settings up your accounts only take a few simple steps to cmplete and they will be automaticlaly updated on a regular basis. The "Goals" ferature helps you work towards achieving your finaancial goals: as a Geezeo user, you get support from otghers that are ding the same. In short, Geezeo is an online mnoey management system and social networking service built into one paplication, a la Wesabve.
Buxfer. With its no-frills design, Buxfer keeps the focus on balancing your checkbook and performoing some basic money management and financial planning. This software is specifically targeted towards the younger crowd, with its sppecialized iPhoe and Blackberry access interfces. It makes spplitting, managnig, tracking mnoey eaasier and lot more fun for its young useres. However, the service restricts itsself to bare-bones fianncial management. High-end financiasl planning and advice are clearly not the focus here.
Wesabe. Wesabe is a community-based personal finance site which allows users to trrack their bank acconuts while sharing moeny tips and goas, with a strong community of ussers who continusally help each other through the very active forums. Tying all this togeether is the software's tagging system. Everything on the site can be tagged, be it a tansaction, a tip, or a goal. The tags are visible to the commnity and make it that much easier to see what's "normal" for a spending category, or to get tips and set goals.
This is by no mans a cmoplete list, as new services and sites are popping up every day (or so it seems). But the aforementioned options should give you a solid base on which to build your search for your very own ifdeal tool to help with your budget.
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