January is the month when most personal finance writers break out the stories about budgeting, saving and getting back on track.
But the stories are usually heavy on "to-do" and short on "how-to."
That's a shame, because there are so many new tools and resources to get your money life sorted. Most use an intriguing mix of technology and social networking that make it less painful than in the past when you needed pen and paper, a calculator and filing cabinet to straighten out your finances.
It's no surprise that the Web is taking over. Nearly seven in 10 Americans, young and old, have relied on the Web for help with personal economic issues during the recession, according to a Pew Research Center report. The majority of Generations X and Y bank online, and being able to do so is important to them, a Fidelity survey found. So here is a list of helpful Web tools and sites, geared towards the demographic that may have never balanced a checkbook. Baby boomers: If you like the sites though, no one's going to stop you from using them, too.
Like it or not, I know my family spent $188 at McDonalds, $702 on kid clothes and $124 on movies and DVDs in 2009. Thank you Mint.com. Sarcasm aside, I've found the site to be an eye-opener.
Mint.com, which was recently purchased by Intuit, maker of Quicken, and a handful of sites like it, work by linking to your bank accounts and credit cards and downloading the information into a single, easy to use interface. You can analyze how, when and where you spend your money using nifty charts and graphs, and can set up alerts that warn you when you're about to blow your budget or overdraw an account. Most are free.
Test drive sites
I use Mint.com instead of the others because it syncs with my bank, it's been around awhile and, frankly, it would be a monumental task to start over on another site. But I encourage you to test drive a few and see which feels the best.
