One of my New Years Resolutions is to watch my money closer. I would like to use a software to track my spending categories, consolidate accounts and credit cards, and so forth. http://www.mint.com/ is one site that looks useful for this. Does anyone have a good suggestion here?
I use iXpenseit on my iPhone. I strongly suggest you look at mobile phone applications to do this, because you can get in the habit of entering your spending data as you spend it. If you don’t do it this way, you have to remember to enter your spending at some other time, and you will likely forget to do it or have stuff accumulate. Another software that I liked when I was a Newton user was PocketMoney. It’s more complex than iXpenseit, but it does run on other platforms. The key to a good expense manager is that it has to be as easy and quick to enter the data as possible. I can deal with having to do a few summations and transformations when I analyze the data, but if it isn’t simple to add an expense to the list, you won’t do it regularly enough to make a difference. Also, unless your income streams are highly irregular, it’s more important to track expenses than income, so you may get more bang for your buck on expense managers than full budget planners. As for Mint, I like the idea of consolidating accounts and things, but I don’t like the idea of a third party having access to all my accounts and passwords, no matter how much they tell me how secure they are.
I use mint.com It is more secure then storing passwords in your Iphone on your computer - that is for sure 
know any good apps for blackberry?
http://lifehacker.com/5584273/five-best-personal-money-management-sites http://lifehacker.com/5722810/draft-five-best-mobile-personal-finance-tools
call me old fashion but excel does a great job for me
Quicken has been good for me.
Excel for me At the end of each month I simply export all my credit card and bank a/c transactions and allocate them accordingly in a large budget spreadsheet. Takes about 20 minutes. You can make it easier by doing everything on your credit card, though obviously some cash expenditure will be required. I’m able to account for pretty much every dollar I’ve spent over the past 5 years or so (barring cash expenses).
newsuper Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Excel for me > > At the end of each month I simply export all my > credit card and bank a/c transactions and allocate > them accordingly in a large budget spreadsheet. > Takes about 20 minutes. You can make it easier by > doing everything on your credit card, though > obviously some cash expenditure will be required. > > > I’m able to account for pretty much every dollar > I’ve spent over the past 5 years or so (barring > cash expenses). I used to do this and then realized after about a year that I didn’t really do anything with the data other than look at it and say: “Wow, I didn’t realize I spend so much on _____!” I never actually reduced my spending on ______.
I keep a budget in excel and on the odd month I take a look at what I actually spent (pulling from credit cards and bank accounts) vs. budget. I find this useful because sometimes what you “think” you spend on eating out for example is substantially different from what you actually spent.
I use excel right now as well…really tells me the truth to why I am getting fat.
higgmond Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > newsuper Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Excel for me > > > > At the end of each month I simply export all my > > credit card and bank a/c transactions and > allocate > > them accordingly in a large budget spreadsheet. > > Takes about 20 minutes. You can make it easier > by > > doing everything on your credit card, though > > obviously some cash expenditure will be > required. > > > > > > I’m able to account for pretty much every > dollar > > I’ve spent over the past 5 years or so (barring > > cash expenses). > > > I used to do this and then realized after about a > year that I didn’t really do anything with the > data other than look at it and say: “Wow, I didn’t > realize I spend so much on _____!” I never > actually reduced my spending on ______. True, but it’s role isn’t just to make you realise how much you spend on xxxxx, but also to allow to determine what other expenditures might be possible. For example, if I find I am consistently spending more than I’m earning, then I’m unlikely to buy a new car on finance. Reducing spending is hard, it’s much easier to avoid spending in the first place (which is where the spending records come in). Plus, every time my wife starts talking about a new handbag or dress, I show her the spreadsheet and slowly shake my head…
Mint.com all the way Been on it for a little over a year and it’s great (and free). I have both mine and my wife’s bank accounts, credit cards and investment accounts all on there. It gives you a great consolidated view of your net worth and your spending habits. After a couple of months I was able to see what my budgets should be across the board, so I set up like 18 different buckets. All transactions automatically get pulled in every day, and you can re-classify as necessary. It really keeps you on track to sticking to a budget. It gives you email alerts if you go over your budget for a certain bucket. They also have iPhone and droid apps, but I primarily use it from the website on my laptop or my iPad. If I have any cash spending, it’s a quick manual update with the date, place, bucket and amount. I had tried the Excel route a while ago, but I was just kidding myself. If you really want a streamlined, quick and accurate tool, I’d try out mint.