There’s no reason you have to go it alone when it’s time to formulate your budget and keep track of your finances. It’s easy to find help online in preparing a budget, tracking expenses, saving money, or getting a quick loan. Using these resources is a great way to improve your overall financial picture, so seeing what’s available is definitely a good investment of an evening or two of your time.

Mint.com offers free online tools that help you track your current spending and reduce future spending. For example, the site can pair you with the best credit card for your needs based on how much you spend per month, your credit rating, and what kind of stores you shop at. Over six million people use the site, which features the same level of encryption that banks use, so it’s proven safe. Let’s look at Mint.com more closely:

• Security The homepage and several supporting pages are very clear about Mint’s commitment to your security and privacy. They claim that they are constantly testing their own site for weaknesses and that they maintain the highest standards of information security—equal to a bank! Also, the program is "read only" — you can’t actually move money around or make purchases. It’s simply a tool for bringing all your accounts onto one screen. Mint offers email and text alerts, too, in case they register high charges or unusual activity on one of your accounts.
• Advice In this age of credit cards, smartphones, and instant everything, personal finance advice quickly becomes outdated. But Mint offers tailored advice for the 21st century consumer on everything from personal security, budgeting, investing, and credit cards to saving, paying off debts or loans, planning for retirement, and tax preparation. And they offer deeper in-depth information on money management, budgeting and personal finance.
• Convenience Mint.com is free, paperless, mobile-ready and personal. Mint helps you collect all of your accounts in one place, tracks your spending habits, categorizes purchases for you, and helps you create a budget based on your individual spending history. It also offers personalized recommendations on ways to save more money. Who doesn’t love saving?

Other Free Online Services

Offermatic.com is a service that offers you rebates based on how you already spend your money. When you supply this free, secure site with your credit card account info, Offermatic gives you discounts based on where you shop and what you buy, so the rebates are relevant to your life. They might be for gas stations, department stores, or other goods and services you actually need, rather than things you don’t.

Billster.net is great for people who want a hand in staying on top of their bills. This service can send you reminders when bills are due, or send reminders to people who owe you money. It tracks recurring expenses like utility bills and credit card statements, and if you share bills with family or roommates, it can help split up those expenses so everyone knows exactly how much they have to pay.

Of course, these three sites are just a few of the many different financial planning sites available. A quick Internet search reveals many more, so take the time to look around and see which ones appeal to you. And of course, DiscountAdvances.com is a useful financial resource in its own right, providing quick payday loans when tracking expenses and cutting back isn’t enough to offset any big bills that come up. As always, do your research and be smart with your money—that’s the best financial advice we can give you.