Personal Finance Management Websites: What’s Your Pick?

Picking a website to help you manage your bank accounts, credit cards, monthly budget, and track your weekly splurges of DVDs and steak dinners can get pretty personal—even Freud would agree that the way you save and spend your money can point to the kind of person you are. If you like multi-tasking and keeping busy, it wouldn’t be surprising that the way you handle your finances often looks like a juggling act; or if you lead a simple and carefree lifestyle, your money may be set on autopilot.

Whatever personality type you are, A, B, or Z, every consumer can use the following personal finance management sites—all for free!—to get their accounts and spending under control before debt drives you to the madhouse.

Complicated Spender: You are a jack-of-all-trades and you thrive under the pressure of juggling multiple bills, lots of credit lines, and an overall complex financial life. Truth be told, you like being in control, so managing your money down to the nitty-gritty details is your ideal take on personal finance. Mint and Quicken Online are comprehensive money management tools that allow you to go in-depth with your finances, categorize and organize credits and debits exactly the way you want, and create detailed budgets for your financial plan.

• Mint’s award-winning site is known for its helpful graphs and tables that track your spending by self-described categories, your net worth over time, your debts, assets, and much more. Mint’s service emphasizes a budgeting tool that shows your projected savings over a certain period of time so you can see how much you’ll save just by sticking to your budget. That tiny carrot on the end of the stick may be enough to push you forward and help you kick your latte addiction for good.
• Quicken is not as fancy-looking as Mint, but it definitely gets the job done with straight-to-the-point navigation and layout. Its innovative feature, My Wallet, helps consumers keep track of cash transactions in addition to credit card and banking transactions. Plus, set up customized email or text message alerts for when upcoming bills are due for the accounts you added, if you are nearing your budget limits, and if your Checking account goes below a certain amount.

The Minimalist: You like simplicity in life, so why should your money management be any different? For easy-to-use personal finance management, Rudder and Moneystrands are two no-fuss, no-hassle tools that emphasize user-friendly options and customization so you can tailor your money management experience to fit your needs, without the extra bells and whistles.

• Rudder boils it down to 3 steps: set up your accounts, set up your bills, and calculate what is left over. By predicting your future cash flow this way, you can figure out how to stay ahead of debt and in a state of healthy finances. Rudder enables you to design and arrange your dashboard with various financial widgets to monitor your finances the way you want it and in one simple glance.
• Moneystrands combines Rudder’s customizability with similar budgeting tools, graphs, and tables as Mint to streamline financial organizing options into an easier-to-use dashboard. With a clean Web 2.0 look and modular accounts and information, this site stands out because while it offers almost as much as Mint and Quicken, you have the choice to personalize the site and pare it down to just the options that you want.

Good Neighbor: You want to be part of a larger community that lets you share your experiences, advice, and questions with other users. If you want to get in touch with real people, not just calculators, graphics, and financial analysts, then Wesabe and Geezeo might be the right personal management tools for you. With interesting features to keep you connected with your community, you never have to feel alone when dealing with your finances.

• Geezeo is like the Twitter of personal finance management sites, with the usual features you’ll find on Mint or Rudder plus an added community forum that functions like group therapy. The Confession box is just the kind of creative outlet needed from a financial service, where you confess up anonymously to those times you’ve stray from your financial goals. Here’s a recent confession from a Geezeo user: “I love clothes too much!!! I’m broke, but at least I look cute :-/”.
• Wesabe encourages like-minded Wesabeans to discuss, ask questions, give advice, and share stories through Wesabe Groups. You can seek out other people who share the same goals and need help in the same areas as you, such as the “Spend Smarter” group, “Frugal Foodies” group, “Buying a House” group, or even the aptly named “Don’t Panic” group. Who knew you could have fun meeting new people while ranting about debt or raving about your latest cost-cutting tip?

Give these sites a shot— it’s completely free and costs you nothing, but you can gain so much in improving your finances. Do something as simple as signing up with any of these sites and making it your homepage so you can check up on how healthy your money management is every time you log-on on the internet. Seeing the budget you set out at the beginning of the month each and every morning will remind you to keep your spending in check. You’ll know before you hit the mall that you are already $25 over budget this month, and that cutting out your daily Starbucks fix has saved you $54.00 so far. Little actions like these can build and grow to become good financial habits that will make your credit report a little healthier and your credit score a little happier. It’s the least you can do for yourself, your wallet, and your mental health.