With the economy the way it is (and me being on my own for the first time in my life), I've become nearly obsessed with keeping track of my finances. It's not particularly healthy, but I think I've finally been able to maintain a healthy sense of balance by using three free* tools: Mint, Burn and Buddi.
Track everything - Mint
Mint.com is wonderful. I can't say enough about it. I had privacy concerns at first, but their "security" explanation page on their site reassured me. Plus, you can't actually move any money using Mint -- you have to go to the banks' official Web sites to transfer anything.
Mint tracks my bank accounts, my credit card, my car loan and my 401(k), keeps a running total of my expenses, tells me when I've gone over budget and allows me to sort expenses using various tags. It's quite handy, and I feel much more in control when I have all that information at my fingertips.
Budget - Buddi
I use Buddi to do the math on new budgets. If I want to add a new item to my monthly budget, I'll add it here. If I'm simply adding a one-time expense to the budget, sure, I'll put it in Mint; however, if I want to add a new permanent expense, I'll use Buddi to figure out if and where I need to cut expenses elsewhere.
The big advantage of this program over Mint is that it lets me input income directly into my budget. Mint shows you your current net worth, etc., but there's no way that I've found to have your income factor into the budget.
Expense reports - Burn
It looks like Blackhole Media's gone out of business, which is a shame -- Burn is a very simple little tool that lets you balance your checkbook online. I use it when I have to keep expense reports: I fill in the amount, the category and the date for each expense. Afterwards, I can just export the file to a .pdf and print it.
So, that's what I use. Any programs or services you can't live without?
* As a journalist, my salary doesn't exactly compare to those in PR or investment banking; therefore, free tools are very, very handy.Labels: money, software