Best Reviewed
Personal Finance Sites
- Best personal finance website Mint.com *Est. $0
- Basic personal finance site for tracking shared expenses Buxfer.com *Est. $0
- Personal finance site with community features Wesabe.com *Est. $0
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Basic personal finance site for tracking shared expenses
- Excellent for creating simple budgets
- Keeps track of IOUs for groups
- Users don't have to provide login information for their accounts
- Provides mobile access in a variety of ways
- Tracks only banking and credit card accounts
- Does not automatically categorize transactions
- Free membership limited to five financial accounts
Buxfer.com's specialty is its ability to track spending among members of a group of people who share expenses (although you can also use it to create a personal budget). It creates IOUs that can be paid from the Buxfer website using Amazon Payments. Besides IOUs, Buxfer tracks only banking and credit card accounts. If you're worried about security, you can manually upload account data to Buxfer; if you're not, it will automatically gather and update it by logging into your accounts. Buxfer.com has a free membership that lets you track five accounts, budgets and bill reminders; you can track unlimited accounts by upgrading to a Plus (*Est. $3) or Pro (*Est. $4) membership. Those who want to track more types of accounts and get more sophisticated reports may want to try Mint.com, but you have to provide your account logins; there's no manual option.
We found recent comparative reviews of Buxfer.com at CNET, Kiplinger.com, GenXFinance.com, Moneywatch.com and PCMag.com.
Our Sources
1. CNET
This excellent review evaluates and compares five financial management sites, including Buxfer.com. Reisinger praises Buxfer for its simplicity, noting that it provides easy-to-understand, step-by-step instructions on how to set up your accounts. He concludes that "Buxfer is simple and responsive. If you're looking for something basic, it's a great place to start."
Review: Manage Your Money Online With These Services, Don Reisinger, Jan. 22, 2009
2. Kiplinger Personal FinanceDetails/Subscribe
Buxfer.com is included in this review of the six best budgeting sites. Stacy Rapacon notes that Buxfer is most useful for group budgeting and tracking IOUs among friends. According to her, Buxfer is good for roommates or people who travel together.
Review: The Six Best Budgeting Sites, Stacy Rapacon, March 2009
Lauren Fairbanks praises Buxfer.com's simple layout and notes that Buxfer allows users to set up budgets, add tags (which function as categories) to transactions, receive an email if they overspend their budget in any category and receive weekly reports by email or text. Like other reviewers, she likes the fact that users can keep track of IOUs and pay them from the Buxfer website. The only downside she notes is that there aren't many different types of reports.
Review: Wesabe, Buxfer and Mint: Which Web-Based Financial Management Site Is Best?, Lauren Fairbanks, Sept. 10, 2008
Buxfer.com and Mint.com are included in the finance category of PCMag.com's best free software of 2010. Griffith likes its "easy-to-grasp look at your financial health."
Review: The Best Free Software of 2010: Finance, Eric Griffith, March 20, 2010
Kristof tries out five personal finance sites, writes a fairly detailed review of each and rates each one on a scale of 1 to 5. Buxfer.com gets the lowest rating, 2 points, because although it's "fast, well designed, and fairly easy to use," it's not really free. She's under the impression that you have to upgrade to a paid membership in order to track investment accounts. That's not accurate -- the paid membership lets you track unlimited accounts, while the free membership limits you to five, including investment accounts.
Review: The Best Money Management Sites, Kathy Kristof, Dec. 2, 2009
Personal Finance Sites Runners Up:
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