Track Your Cash
The Web makes it easy to know exactly where your money goes.
About now your new year's resolve to stay on top of your spending may be flagging. Don't quit yet, because it's easier than ever to track your income, outgo and everything in between.
In January, Intuit unveiled its $2.99-a-month Quicken Online, a service geared toward twenty- and thirtysomethings whose main financial goals are knowing where their money goes, avoiding late and overdraft fees, and living within their means.
Not to be confused with the more comprehensive Quicken software, the online version doesn't manage investments or organize your taxes. It aggregates balance information from bank and credit-card accounts so you know how much money you've got available, taking pending transactions into account. It'll also remind you of upcoming bills (via text message or e-mail) and track spending by category. You can even get money tips from other users.
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Apple iPhone users can do it all on the fly, tapping in purchase info at the cash register the way their parents might have updated a checkbook. A 30-day trial is free at Quicken.Intuit.com.
Quicken will no doubt give one of our favorite sites a run for its money. But Wesabe (as mentioned on our list of the 25 Best Web Sites) is free, does similar balance-aggregating and money-tracking, and is also mobile-phone-friendly.
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Anne Kates Smith brings Wall Street to Main Street, with decades of experience covering investments and personal finance for real people trying to navigate fast-changing markets, preserve financial security or plan for the future. She oversees the magazine's investing coverage, authors Kiplinger’s biannual stock-market outlooks and writes the "Your Mind and Your Money" column, a take on behavioral finance and how investors can get out of their own way. Smith began her journalism career as a writer and columnist for USA Today. Prior to joining Kiplinger, she was a senior editor at U.S. News & World Report and a contributing columnist for TheStreet. Smith is a graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis, Md., the third-oldest college in America.
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