Online Money Management Sites Compared - Mint, Quicken, Wesabe and Geezeo

I have previously commented on my opinions about Mint, Quicken, and Wesabe. Since then I have tried Geezeo. Above is a table showing the functionality of each service. Click on the image to bring up a bigger, easy to read version. I have listed the features in order of importance to me. As they say, your mileage may vary depending on what you are looking for.

Currently Geezeo has limited functionality as far as graphically showing you how you are doing. They do have a method of getting any account added since they support both an automatic and a manual entry method. They also have community that helps support its users through discussions and common goal sharing. The one annoyance I had with the website is the abundance of adds. I understand they are trying to help pay for the free service but it overwhelms the usefulness.

All in all, I'm still using Wesabe for my money management. It gives me what I want in easy to read graphs and a powerful tagging and reporting capability.

My Dollar Plan Website

My Dollar Plan is my favorite site for learning ways to save, make, and conserve money. Madison DuPaix made a calculated move to quit her job. It was a bold move but has worked out well for her. Read her story and you'll see that this was a well thought out plan. She is a real numbers person. She has some very ingenious ways to stretch a buck. One thing she does that is not conventional, but effective, is what she calls credit card arbitrage. She looks for credit cards that offer free interest for credit transfers and new purchases. She then puts the money she would have spent in an interest bearing account and pockets the interest. She has a intricate method of tracking all these credit cards and keeps moving them so she never has to pay interest. You need to read her plan to even consider it. Miss one transfer date and you'll pay more in interest to the credit card company than you will make in a savings account. She covers just about any topic from Insurance to IRA's to college savings. I have her on my daily read list. I never miss a post. I have picked up several items that she has written about to save me money or look for a better deal.

Quicken Online has improved!

Quicken Online has improved their free online offering since I last wrote about it. In my earlier post I compared Mint.com, Quicken Online and Wesabe. I noticed this weekend that Quicken Online has made some changes. It seems to add a few new minor options but the biggest option is they do a calculation of how much money you have available until your next paycheck. They base this on the previous months payments and paydays. It's really pretty accurate. This is a nice feature, but I believe it just encourages spending. By knowing how much you have left to spend by the next paycheck, I look at that like okay I have $50 that I can spend. It should be looked at like I have $50 to save or invest but I don't. It looks ahead and takes into account future repeatable expenses that are coming up before your payday so it should help you not overspend. I think the service is nice but I just look at it wrong. The one thing I can't do that I really rely on is to compare my expense to my earnings for the month. I look at that every month and then determine how much, if any, I can move to savings. I looked all over the web page but couldn't figure out how to get a graph, chart or listing that shows how much I made versus how much I spent. Quicken Online is still the easiest site to get your data imported from your accounts automatically. I set it up the first time and now everytime I login it automatically updates all my accounts without me doing a thing. That is nice.

I am still using Wesabe for the time being. I really like the income versus expenses graph. Wesabe gives you that on the front page. Between that and a little more flexible tagging or categorizing is why I still like Wesabe better. I can get all my accounts updated fairly easily (still not as easy as Quicken). Mint.com still can't upload my credit union data. Until I can do that this site will not work.

Still the winner: Wesabe