Tools that will change the way you think about personal finances

Personal finance management is an extremely necessary aspect of life, but everyone does not have the knowledge or the time to do the same. Sometimes, out of sheer laziness or carelessness, people tend to ignore the management of personal finances.

However, there is no need to lose your sleep over this matter since a number of effective tools are available to change your very perspective about personal finances. Have a look at five of them.

Buxfer

Buxfer is an online provider of money management solutions based in California. With the help of their tool, you can have a single comprehensive view of your finances, with a particular focus on expenses and spending patterns. The credit card and bank transactions that you make are categorically downloaded to give you a clear idea of your spending, which in turn helps you plan for future expenses. You can create different expense heads and set annual, monthly and weekly alerts. Once expenses under a particular head exceed the assigned value, you receive an alert.

MoneyDance

This powerful personal finance tool is available for Linux, Windows, and OS X, and supports budgeting and online banking. In short, you can download bank transactions and use the same within the application for managing investments.

Numerous financial institutions can be connected through this tool, and if you want, you can import transactions. The account register performs exactly as a balanced checkbook, helping you keep a note of exactly where your finances are going.

Mint

Mint is a web-based free tool, the first of its kind in the personal finance category. It can synchronize all banks, investments, credit cards, retirement funds as well as other financial accounts, rendering a comprehensive picture of your financial condition in a jiffy. Another striking feature of Mint is that it allows you to create household budgets and can also set off alarms if you fail to stick to the prepared budget. You can actually see the amount you are spending, along with the utilities or purchases on which the expense is being made, and also develop saving goals.

Expense Manager

The name itself is suggestive of the fact that this tool is extremely helpful in tracking and managing expenses. This personal finance tool is actually an Android app which has free as well as paid versions. You can categorize expenses and can track them on a yearly, monthly and weekly basis. It is also possible to track income and also create payment schedules and payment alerts. Reminder alerts can also be created when you have recurring expenses such as credit card payments or utility bills. This tool comes with an ‘auto-fill’ feature which enables you to fill up the expense categories automatically. The most amazing thing is that you can go for cloud storage of data.

AceMoney Lite

This tool assists you in managing multiple accounts. Apart from keeping track of expenses and maintaining budgets, you can also manage credit cards, investments, and online banking. When you obtain personalized loans through premium portals like Moneybanker, loan payments can also be tracked through this tool. Here you can work with different languages and multiple currencies, and can also obtain a pictorial representation of your financial status through reports and charts. Up to two accounts can be added free of cost, while for more, you have to go for the paid version.

The past few years have seen a considerable rise in the growth and popularity of personal finance tools. These great tools help you to seamlessly manage your personal finance matters and keep track of everything at a single instance. More innovative and powerful tools are expected to adorn the market in future.

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DISCLAIMER: This article expresses my own ideas and opinions. Any information I have shared are from sources that I believe to be reliable and accurate. I did not receive any financial compensation in writing this post, nor do I own any shares in any company I’ve mentioned. I encourage any reader to do their own diligent research first before making any investment decisions.