I have been looking at various online tools to keep track of my finances, 401k, etc and have found that there are a plethora out there. I am getting conflicting reports about them, so I turn to my fellow dopers for opinions.
The sites I have found are (in no particular order):
Does anyone have any experiences, good or bad, with any of these sites? Recommendation?
Just wanted to give this a prod in case anyone missed it.
Does anyone on the dope use these services? What do you think of them?
I played with yodlee after reading some very good reviews on it (in some comparison reviews, it got better ratins than the other sites did). Easy to use and I like the charts although you do have to go through and double check the categories it sorts things into. I only used it for my checking account so I can’t tell you how it works on with other accounts.
However, I’ve got a spreadsheet system that I’ve customized and that’s what I use on a daily basis. I’m used to it and it works for me.
I have never used it, but I hear Mint.com is amazing. I signed up a while back so that I could get control of my finances a little and try to start saving more and taking care of things. Unfortunately, at the time, I was also hit with some other stuff that took up a huge chunk of time (we relocated, changed jobs, moved across town, and some other junk) and never got around to playing with it. From what I’ve read, it is safe and does a good job of analyzing financial issues, but that doesn’t say much. I also have seen several things that say it is not so good. Here’s a few links.
http://www.lifeclever.com/mint-a-money-management-tool-that-doesnt-suck/
Sorry I’m not more help.
Brendon
Thanks for the responses so far.
I have read the links your posted Brendon and several more like them but it all adds up to a conflicting picture.
Does anyone have actual first hand experience? Good or bad?
I use yodlee. I like it a lot. I also signed up for mint, and it looks a lot more slick than yodlee, but has one major, major drawback, which I’ll get to in a second.
Yodlee is pretty simple to use. You do have to give it every bit of information you have to give the financial sites you want it to use: login name, password, answers to security questions and so on. If that spooks you, you might as well drop it right here. I read up on them, and seems like major banks use them as well, so I was placated.
Anyhow, you sign up and they’ll connect to your accounts. They pull in the total and transactions automatically for the most part. You do need to doublecheck the categories. Yodlee will automatically assign things to the right categories, mostly, but you can also change it manually if you, say, run to the gas station to pick up some milk (i.e. you can change the category for that one transaction from “Gasoline” to “Groceries”). It also has the “split transaction” feature, so if you, say, go to the ATM and get $40 out, then spend $20 at the grocery store and $20 on a couple CDs, you can classify the main transaction as ATM, then split it and classify those accordingly.
One potential wrench in the system: Yodlee does not, for some reason, catch my checking account transactions. It DOES connect to the account ok and update the total amount of money in there, it just doesn’t find the individual transactions. If this is an account you use regularly, it might make it too much of a hassle to use. However, this is where mint drops the ball completely: You can’t input manual transactions at all there (yet, anyway). In my case, I don’t use my checking account all that much, so I manually input the transactions and it’s not a big deal. But that’s why I can’t use mint at all – the transactions I do use the checking account for are substantial.
Other than that, I love it. I’ve got my checking account, my credit card, my online savings account and two student loan accounts. I can see all the totals on one screen, or all the transactions that have occurred on any or all of them in any given time period. You can also set up manual accounts, where you have to enter all the transactions yourself – I set up one of these to keep track of a bunch of savings bonds I have.
You can then track your spending by category and set up budgets by category. There are functions to pay your bills and things like that as well, but I haven’t used them. While you can’t perform functions with any of the accounts themselves (aside from the Billpay, and I mean things like transferring money between them) from within Yodlee, each of the accounts has a handy link to go directly to the site that account is associated with. You can also set up bill reminders for credit cards and email alerts for large transactions or if any of the accounts falls below a specified amount.
Anyhow, as I said, I like it a lot. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them.
Garfield–How do you think it is as far as handling business accounts? I have personal accounts and loans and whatnot, but I also have a small business that needs keeping track of.
Hm. I really don’t know how good it would be at handling businesses. It does allow you to group accounts, so you could keep your business and your personal accounts grouped if you wanted them all under one login (the grouping allows you to only show you that particular group on the transactions or budgeting or expense screens). The categorization system seems to be robust enough to make it work.
There may be some other considerations that, not being a business owner, I wouldn’t have thought of. I think it could probably work, but I really can’t say for sure. If you have specific questions as to what it’s capable of, I could help you out there.