Mint.com

As a banker, I have to tell you one of the worst things I hear people say is "I don't use a checkbook." Seriously?! Most often, this comes with some sort of complaint attached to it and somehow, their lack of record keeping is supposed to be my problem? That's why I want to suggest Mint.com for anyone reading this and everyone who has used the "I don't balance my checkbook" complaint! It's a FREE financial management tool that brings all of your accounts (checking, savings, credit cards, mortgages, etc.) into one total management product.

One of the things I want to accomplish this year is (#29) to set a budget for myself and stick to it. Through using Mint.com, I've been able to see how much money each month I'm spending at Starbucks (more than I thought) and how much money we spend on gas and electric from month to month. By logging into this website once or twice a week, I'm able to hold myself accountable for what I've spent during the month. So, if $100 on Starbucks seems excessive for the month, now I can bring it down to $25 which (in my opinion) isn't that bad and put a little extra into savings.

After you set up your user name and password for the website, it will ask you what accounts you want to import. Mint will automatically take the last 3 months of activity and categorize the transactions from your chosen accounts into the appropriate categories. Occasionally, I'll have to change a transaction that should be categorized as "eating out" to "dry-cleaning," etc., but it usually gets it right. Once you have several months of history to view, you can view a bunch of different options on there. For example, I'm able to compare what our water or electric bill has been over the past year (or more if you have it stored) or see how much you spend on a specific store for the month or several months, etc.

I hope this website will help you as much as it has helped me - I find it to be very useful in balancing my checkbook ;)