Watching your money
1. Micro-manage your finances. The Money Dashboard site (http://www.moneydashboard.com) aims to help you manage your finances across the board. It brings in the information from all your accounts (current, savings, credit cards, etc.) so you can plan and track your expenditures versus your financial goals. Everything is shown on the dashboard with graphs, and past spending patterns can be used to predict future outgoings. We love the concept and our only concern - not enough to say you shouldn’t try it - is that the forums do mention a few bugs, especially when refreshing incoming data from bank accounts.
2. Macro-managing your money. We checked out MoneyVista (http://www.moneyvista.com) a few months ago and liked the site but were disappointed with the forums. They are now quite active on topics such as pensions and the remarkable world of cashback sites. MoneyVista lets you see the big picture, e.g. planning for your retirement: you enter your information (income, savings, investments, etc.) and changes are reflected in the various reports. Tax and National Insurance changes are kept up to date by the MoneyVista module itself. It’s free for 30 days then you have to pay £8 per month.
3. Financial information. MoneyVistahas a vastrange of guides and tools but despite that the site is easy to navigate and is excellent for finding financial information of all kinds. MoneySavingExpert.com (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com) is an alternative, of course, but we’re beginning to think it’s trying to do too much.
4. Financial apps. One we like is Toshl (iOS, Android, Symbian and Windows Phone: free), an app that lets you manage your personal finances. Data entry is easy and the use of Cloud technology means that you can access your up to date data from whichever device you’re using. The Pro version (£12 per year) has more features, e.g. export to Excel, graphics on the website, etc. Another useful one is MoneyLover (iOS & Android), which lets you set your budget, and hopefully stick to it.
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