In a recent letter to the editor, Redondo Beach resident Francisco Peralta bemoaned the inadequate financial literacy taught to students in schools, ("Teach kids financial basics," last item).
"As citizens lose their jobs, they realize that they don't have enough money to pay off their debt because they were never taught how to save money or how to manage it well," wrote Peralta.
It is a point worth taking to heart, and the message is not limited just to younger people. The Internet has made getting your financial affairs in order less time-consuming than it was before and free.
The leader of the Web-based personal finance pack is Mint. The Daily Link last reported on Mint in July. The site has grown to nearly a million users and is constantly adding new features. It has bank accounts, credit card purchases and investments tracked in tables and in visual graph formats.
What's the catch in offering this free service? Mint is supported through advertisers -- banks, credit card companies and investment brokers -- who pitch money-saving offers to users.
Mint has an enviable position at the top of the market heap, but Fortune magazine reports it is facing some stiff competition. Intuit, the leader in personal finance software, now makes Quicken Online free to use. It offers the same services as Mint, but in a more formal interface. Users of Quicken software should find the free online version very familiar.
Of course, success breeds competition. Other personal finance management sites worth checking out are Buxfer, Geezeo, and Wesabe, which emphasizes the social networking aspects of budgeting.
Each promises secure setup, and the initial registration is the easy part. Once an account is established, all sites require you to sync up with your financial institutions' online accounts. This takes more time, and not all sites are compatible, but it does save the trouble of having to remember multiple passwords.
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