All posts in: Personal Finance Sites

Top personal finance sites are free, convenient

Computers & Internet
By Molly McLaughlin on April 6, 2010 in

Personal finance sites

Personal finance sites offer easy online and mobile access to your financial accounts (no download required), and in most cases their services are free. These websites offer similar features to the desktop-based products covered in our accounting software report, such as account aggregation, spending reports and budget creation. Our top picks this year are Mint.com, Buxfer.com and Wesabe.com, all of which offer free memberships and robust features. Our freshly-updated report on personal finance websites covers all you need to know about these products, as well as associated security concerns.

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Which financial records to keep, which to toss

Computers & Internet
By Christine Frietchen on February 19, 2010 in

Mountain of receipts

For many of us, filling out tax forms isn't really that painful. Instead, it's going through the piles of credit card receipts, pay stubs, old utility bills and medical statements that's the real pain in the you-know-what. If you're like me, you start the year off well enough -- making separate envelopes for each expense type or receipt. But by March, I'm pretty much just stuffing everything into the same shoe box. By the time I'm ready to get my tax stuff together, it takes me a weekend to dump out my stuff and sort out what I need. So, resolving to do better this year, I'm starting by coming up with a definitive list of which financial records to keep -- and how long to keep them -- along with what can go straight to the shredder.

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Mint.com to stay, Quicken Online to go

Computers & Internet
By Molly McLaughlin on November 6, 2009 in

Mint.com

Mint users rejoice! We reported in September that competitor Intuit (maker of Quicken Online) had acquired Mint and we were worried that Mint as we knew it would cease to exist. But, now that the deal has been finalized, Mint CEO turned Intuit VP Aaron Patzer says Quicken Online will be phased out and current accounts will be migrated to Mint.com over the next 6-9 months.

Our report on personal finance sites gave the edge to Mint over Quicken Online, but the latter service has a few features that Mint doesn't. Patzer acknowledged this in a interview with Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch, revealing one Quicken Online feature in particular that Mint should have. That is "the ability to manually enter cash transactions or record checks which have not yet cleared." Patzer also talked about integrating Mint with other Intuit products such as TurboTax.

Read our full report on personal finance sites, for more on Mint and other services.

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Intuit acquires competitor Mint.com for $170 million

Computers & Internet
By Molly McLaughlin on September 16, 2009 in

Mint.com

What a summer it's been. Since we published our new report on Personal Finance Sites in May, our top pick, Mint.com has undergone a number of changes, regularly piling on new features and winning accolades from reviewers, most of whom prefer it over competitor Intuit's Quicken Online. That competition is about to come to a screeching halt, however, as Mint.com has been acquired by Intuit for $170 million, as confirmed by Mint.com CEO Aaron Patzer at the TechCrunch50 event this month. Mint.com received a $50,000 award when it launched two years ago at TechCrunch40, a competition that pits start-ups against one another. Patzer will join Intuit as GM of the company's Personal Finance group, which includes Quicken and Quicken Online.

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