Managing personal and household finances is always a challenge. Careful and considerate budgeting is a necessity, as is monitoring your day to day spending. To set up a budget, and to track the money you spend, check out these helpful apps and services for organizing your personal finances online.
ToshI Finance (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, iPhone, Android)
With a simple to use and attractive browser and mobile interface, ToshI lets you setup your expenses and income and easily add expenditures when you're on the go. ToshI also offers some useful additional features, such as the ability to input and track foreign currencies, exporting to spreadsheet, and unique and attractive info-grahics to help you keep track of your spending and income month to month at a glance. Free to use, ToshI also offers a paid tier (from their website):
With Toshl Pro you can add more than one income, more than one budget, get extra infographics on the web and export to additional formats (PDF, Excel, GDocs).
CashBase (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, iPhone, Android)
Similarly, Casebase offers an attractive and easy to use interface for managing expenses and income, setting up recurring transactions, and creating graphs for visualizing your personal finances. Some additional features include the ability to import bank statements and cashflow projections so you can estimate how much extra spending money you have month to month.
Xero Personal Finance (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, iPhone, Android)
Offering a slightly more professionally focused interface, and more pro level features via the web based Xero Accounting Software, Xero features the ability to import multiple bank accounts, manage payments, and set and track financial goals. Xero is available for a free trial, with paid tiers based on your personal or professional needs.
For more information about apps for managing personal finances, check out our list of Online Tools For Smarter And Secure Budgeting.
(Image: Sean Rioux)
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I've been using Mint.com for a few years now. It's free, and while they do "suggest" some financial products now and then it's done in a very unobtrusive way. I like that it links up with my bank accounts, student loans, and investment accounts, and allows me to tag every transaction. I also like features like budgeting, tracking goals, and the different graphical representations of trends in income and spending.
There are supposedly several Mint mobile apps, but I haven't had a chance to try them because they're not compatible with my only-sort-of-android phone.
I also use Mint.com, I was surprised to not see it on this list? I love the simplicity of having everything sync up so I can easily see where my money is going. I have the iPhone app and it's really wonderful, it sends me alerts about things that I deemed important in my settings and it offers a really simple snapshot of my finances.
Yep, another Mint user here. I'm a little obsessed with it and I love the mobil app.
How did Mint not make it on this list? It's a pretty glaring omission. I also use it and love it.
Mint only supports major banks and you have to upload your info to get started so if your like me and bank at a small regional bank, it is useless. Good to see other options are available.
I have been so tempted to try one of these budgeting tools, but have been so wary of having to hand over all of my banking/credit card info! Isnt it just as easy to set up a spreadsheet for this?
I'd encourage Apartment Therapy users to come check out Adaptu as well. We can help you manage your finances, create budgets, track bank accounts, retirement plans, rewards and utilities points. Plus we have an iPhone and Android app as well. Not to mention we are free!
I use Mint.com too and I have a local credit union for my checking account, so it supports at least some small, local banks (it probably depends on the bank's online interface). I LOVE mint and I'm surprised it didn't make the list, too.
I'm also another happy Mint user. I was thrilled to find that my tiny credit union was prepared to open up to allow Mint to access data from it.
I love how easy it is. Based on my spending it'll create a budget that I can tweak and then monitor how well I'm doing against it.
I've a few minor gripes about how it mis-categorizes some of my spending but overall, its helping to keep me on track.
Also, with Mint, i tend to be looking at things retrospectively rather than proactively. So, I can go over my budget in one area because I don't keep track of where I am on each category. Even having the app on my phone doesn't really help but that's more how I roll rather than an issue with the tool.
I'm not one of those people who could use a spreadsheet or pen and paper to keep track of everything. If you are, more power to you.
I use PageOnce, and was surprised not to see it on this list. It logs into and tracks every single account I have (less Netflix and my local water bill), including my student loans, my cable bill, my energy bill, my credit cards, airline miles, rental car memberships - whatever. It's mindblowingly compatible with almost everything. It free and super simple, although it doesn't have the capability to analyze your checking account spending.
I just started using Personal Capital. It's very similar to Mint, in that you link all your accounts and it gives you summaries and graphs. If you sign up with the email address associated with your paypal account (provided you use paypal) and my referral link, they'll give you $10! Mine payed out in about a week. referral link / non-referral link
Mint supports my credit union and has a long list of banks and lenders available. In fact, for a couple years now my CU has had a connection with an OEM version of Mint called Finance works. It became available shortly after Intuit bought Mint. I wish I could link my Finance works setup with my Mint account, but other than that it's pretty good.
i have Toshl on my Nokia N9 to monitor my credit card spending wherever i go. very simple to use and pleasing to the eyes.
I use mint.com too and it works real well. But i will take a look at the ones here for comparison.
Mint doesn't work with all banks nor does it let you anticipate future spending - in my mind, these are two huge flaws and the reason that I don't use Mint (plus Mint does not necessarily give you real time data). These sites/apps look like they are more for tracking and budgeting on a daily basis where you're the one inputting the information, which is something that Mint doesn't do. Two completely different things guys.
Okay I said that after just having looked at Toshl - the other two may be more like Mint.
I use www.SavingsMap.com. Like these other sites, it lets you evaluate a static budget, but where it differs is in the ability to forecast future cash flows intelligently and show how you stack up against some of your longer term savings goals.
A bit more helpful for financial decision making, but full disclosure, I am part of the SavingsMap team.