Like a lot of people I’m sure, something I’m desperately lacking in the land of money management is a centralized place to manage everything. I tried the 60-day trial of Quicken, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I mean, in theory it was exactly what I was looking for; but it didn’t auto-sync with all of my accounts, which is a must-have for me to spend the money on it ($64). It was supposed to grab my investments, loan balances (car and school), banking info, etc, but it didn’t. My bank and zero-balance credit card updated automatically, but with a catch: ignored pending transactions. I’ve gotten used to the “available balance” from online banking, which does consider pending transactions. Plus, that’s what I match my check book register against. In the end, Quicken just didn’t work for me.
Wesabe just released a Firefox extension that looks pretty slick (watch the video). But I don’t feel comfortable enough trusting it with everything. I trust my banking site, but I have more confidence in a national bank than a free (and community-based?) service with not much to lose. Personally, I would not enjoy working on an application that links into banking software and deals with other money-related accounts. That’s right up there in the list of things that aren’t fun to worry about.
Maybe someday I’ll find a solution. Until then, I’ll keep using the 6 bookmarks in my “money” bookmark folder. Blah.
Comments
Sounds like a problem waiting for you to build the solution.
Under normal conditions, I might consider it. But of all the people to develop under SSL, I probably trust myself the least—especially when it’s my own money ;)
This looks like a really cool tool. However, I’m with you on the whole security issue.
Lee, you are right… Ryan should build something.
You need to check out EasyView
I just signed up since and it appears to link up with a ton of different banks.
Yeah, so, EasyView totally rocks – I now have five different accounts linked together (including my credit card). This could be perfect for you. Plus, they support a ridiculous number of banks.
One more – Yodlee – they built the system that powers EasyView, but theirs looks better and seems a bit more powerful in terms of features.
I’ve yet to check out EasyView or Yodlee (I have no excuses), but just to keep track of the options, here’s another one: Mint.