Online Budget Sites

Are you looking for assistance managing your budget and expenses? There are several sites that offer to help consumers with this process for free.

Mint - probably the biggest and flashiest of all of the online finance management systems, Mint.com allows you to link all of your accounts (credit cards, banking, household, etc.) in one place. You provide the Mint your login information and it gathers up all of your banking and bill updates from their respective websites. It is one stop banking! You can see your retirement account balances, credit card balances and usage, banking information and more all from the Mint website.

Budget Pulse - provides a great and easy way for people to organize their cash flow, expenses and bank accounts in one place. In addition, Budget Pulse has a place for setting goals and tracking your progress towards achieving your financial goals. These may include debt consolidation or debt repayment goals, vacations, paying off your home or saving for retirement.

Budget Tracker - this budget site provides a lot of services such as managing multiple checking, savings, and investment accounts and the ability to upload document images and save copies of bills, taxes, wills or other important financial documents. It also has a feature to help small business owners manage their invoices, expenses and estimates. Unlike Mint, Budget Tracker does not link directly to your other accounts. For those people concerned about security, this is a plus.

Clear Check Book - this website provides tools for balancing your checkbook, managing your budgets and tracking your spending. In addition, they have application for the IPhone, Android and Palm phones, so you can bring your information with you anywhere.  

All of these websites have methods for tracking your spending, reconciling your bank statements, and setting up calendar reminders. Another great tool they share are the reports and graphs that can be a terrific visual tool when understanding where your money goes.

As always, if you need someone to talk to about creating a budget, contact a certified credit counselor. Happy budgeting!

Published Feb 2, 2011.