Use An Online Financial Management Tool

There are a few great free financial management tools out there on the internet that you should take advantage of. They have several uses for someone trying to save the most they can.

1. All accounts in one place - Seeing all of your financial data summed up in one place can give you a great overall picture of of how much money you have and how much is saved up on one screen. You won't need to enter log in credentials on countless other sites to get your complete financial profile anymore. That's convenient.

2. Data, data, and more data - With all of your finances in one place, these online applications are able to generate some very useful data. You can easily pop up a pie chart that lists all your expenses and allow you to see where most of your money is going. You'll be able to see totals. Say you are one of those coffee fiends who doles out $6 every morning for coffee. With a little data analysis you'll see that those coffees have cost you over $1,500 over the course of the year. Those sneaky expenses really add up and this will help you see that. You'll also be able to compare your spending habits to others around the country.

Chart from Mint.com

3. Reminders - You can get email reminders for bills that are due soon. This way you can have a little help to make sure you never pay another dreaded late fee again.

4. Recommendations - This software can also look at the accounts you currently have and offer money-making or money saving recommendations. It could be a different credit card with lower rates, a savings account or CD with higher rates, or IRA suggestions

There are a bunch of these free financial management tools out there like Mint, Yodlee, Thrive, and Wesabe. I personally use Mint and love it for it's speed, interface, and ability. Of the other listed tools Yodlee is the only other one that I can tell has a significant different feature of note. Yodlee allows you to pay bills online from within the application itself. I find it to be a little slower in general, but this feature might make it worth it for some. None are yet flawless since there are certain credit cards and loans that they might not be able to link to, but they do have the majority. Some recommendations are lacking too sometimes, but you can use your common sense to figure out if the suggested idea is better than what you have now.

So whatever financial management tool you may choose, use it to your advantage. It can be a great tool for finding more money and more savings. It certainly can't hurt to try. It's free.