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Photo: Steve Rhodes
If your New Year’s resolution included some sort of financial goal, odds are you’ve struggled to keep up with it already. While most people know they should keep some sort of budget, and many genuinely try to, most run into the reality of it all: tracking all those receipts and logging each purchase takes a huge amount of time. Even for those who started with the best intentions, most soon fall behind. That’s why a growing number of people are turning to web- and mobile-based personal finance solutions. Plus, you can access your data from anywhere and it’s easy to keep up with your expenses.
If your main struggle with finances has been forcing yourself to sit down after a long day at work to balance your checkbook, read on for our roundup of a few tools that can turn the tide with the best personal finance apps out there.
you want to:
Manage your accounts with the least work possible
Mint.com: Web, iPhone (free)
Mint is a free web-based application that tracks your spending and your account balances. Mint’s claim to fame is that the site automatically retrieves your financial data from your banks, credit card companies and the like, and tracks your net worth, spending and even divides your purchases into categories for you — so that Amex charge from Taco Bell at 1:43 a.m. on Saturday will automatically get classified as “food.” From here, it’s easy to set budgets for each category and even receive texts or e-mails when you’re low on funds or about to go over your budget in a category.
The downside to all this is that, yes, you’re giving Mint.com all your financial information so they can review your complete financial picture. The information is held on their servers, and they claim to use the same level of security as bank websites do, but you’ll need to head over to Mint.com to see if the security policy is something you’re comfortable with. If you are, mint is a free, powerful and nearly totally automated service to track your finances.
Pros: Free, versatile, automatic, good companion website
Cons: Requires you to share your financial data, not as powerful as more complex tools
you want to:Control what gets tracked and how by hand
Pocket Money: iPhone ($4.99)
If you’re hesitant to hand your finances over to a company like Mint.com to be automated, no need …
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