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Budgeting, saving, and managing your money are high on everyone's list of priorities right now. There are many online tools and resources that will help you track and manage your money, even help you save. I'll review four of these sites.
First, a new site for planning, budgeting, monitoring and learning about finances is I Ask Emma. Emma stands for Education Money Management Assistant. Sign up and enter your information so that you can set up a budget, set goals, plan and organized to-dos to achieve your goals, and learn from a resource library or interact with other users. This service costs you $16.95 a month.
The success of all these steps at I Ask Emma or any other site depends on entering good information in the beginning when you set up your account. You want what you are doing online to map accurately with the reality of what you are doing offline. Gather up your paperwork beforehand, so you can enter good data.
You can check out the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for I Ask Emma before you sign up.
The second financial site, Mint.com is free. It's been around for quite a while and has an excellent reputation and large user-base.
To get started at Mint, set up the account with all your financial information, including your investments. The site says this takes about 5 minutes. Mint uses this information to show you what you're spending your money for now, set goals for the future, and track your progress in achieving those goals. It helps you find ways to save and reduce debt.
A very nice feature at Mint, in addition to the fact that it's free, is that you use it anonymously. You set up the account using an email address, password and zip code. Mint doesn’t ask for your name, address, social security number, account numbers, or PINs. You don't store any money there in an accout connected to your bank account or your credit card. Even so, Mint uses all sorts of online security measures to protect and secure the site.
Mint doesn't have a terms of use page, but it does have a Privacy and Security page.
BlogHers have talked about Mint here:
- Saving a Mint at The Mama Hood
- Minty Fresh Finances: MS Money vs. Mint at The Well-Rounded Woman
The third site I want to bring to your attention is Smarty Pig. Smarty Pig is all about saving. The services are free.
You open an account at Smarty Pig and start depositing savings there. It's FDIC insured. They currently pay 3.05% (APY) interest, which is a very good return for a savings account at the moment.
The unique feature of Smarty Pig is that it's social. Widgets for your web site allow other people can make deposits into your savings account. Others can contribute to your savings goals, you can contribute to friends' savings goals. If you want to encourage someone to start a savings account, you can give them a Smarty Pig gift card for $25, $50, $100 or $500 to get their account started.
If your savings goal involves a specific product from a specific retailer, Smarty Pig has partnered up with a number of Top Retailers who will add a percentage to your savings if you withdraw it in the form of a gift card to use in their stores. If you don't want to tie your withdrawal to a specific store, Smarty Pig issues your savings and interest in the form of a debit MasterCard that can be used anywhere.
The Smarty Pig has a Disclosures page with links to terms and conditions and other important matters.
BlogHers have talked about Smarty Pig here:
- 10 Ways That I Can't Save Money at Oh My Aching Debts
- This Little Piggy Went to the Bank at Parenting Squad
The final site is Thrive. Thrive is about managing your money to pay off debts, boost savings, and getting a workable budget going to keep you on the right track. Thrive is free to use and tosses in a free credit report (which you can free elsewhere, so it's not much of an incentive.)
Thrive doesn't just take your data and graph it all out so you get an idea of what you're actually doing with your money. It offers "personalized" advice on how to reduce debt, save money, or reach your financial goals.
Thrive has partnered with a large number of banks so that they can aggregate your information from various credit card, checking, savings,
