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Personal Finance Sites links
More and more banks now offer free online bill paying, account alerts and other helpful features through their websites. It's worth checking to see whether the institution where you bank or have a credit card account offers such services. We have separate reports on accounting software and online bill paying.
There are a number of newer finance websites that offer compelling features, but haven't been widely reviewed yet. Rudder.com, which debuted in 2008, is best suited to young people and focuses more on forecasting and bill paying than on financial history and complex reporting. Thrive (www.justthrive.com) gives users a score for their financial health, and recommends ways to improve the score including budgeting, paying down debt and reducing spending. It calculates how long the user could survive without a job, and how much income he or she would have in retirement, based on current and ongoing investments. MoneyStrands (https://money.strands.com) launched in 2008 and is targeted to teenagers and people in their twenties; it features social networking and supports multiple currencies and languages. NeoBudget.com is another online finance software product that offers envelope budgeting.
Shelley Elmblad, About.com's guide to financial software, has several articles that discuss different aspects of personal finance sites, including their advantages and disadvantages, and security issues. (Note: ConsumerSearch is owned by About.com, but the two do not share an editorial affiliation.)
The blogBrokeGradStudent.com discusses six applications that help you track your money online.
Two books, "Personal Finance for Dummies" and "Personal Finance Workbook for Dummies," may be worth checking out if you've never before tried to set up a budget or keep track of your total financial picture.
TextHog.com is a service that lets you track expenses by text, email and Twitter, and import the data to Quicken, Quickbooks and Excel. The basic service is free; additional features cost money (*Est. $7).
The Quicken Blog is a good place to find information about the future of Mint.com and other Intuit products.
Finally, online finance software websites themselves have details about features, security and privacy as well as information about free trials.