Managing Your Money With Web 2.0 – Part 1

People love talking about money. (They also love talking about other things, but that’s another story). Put the Internet and Web 2.0 together with that, and you’ve got a lot of money talk!

Let’s start with blogs. You’ll find almost anything to do with money and personal finance – hundreds of blogs dealing with this. Start at PFBlogs – that’s one of the leading blog aggregators, pulling together posts on over 700 blogs covering personal finance, real estate, stock investing, debt reduction, and frugal living.

Most Personal Finance discussions center around two themes – spending less money, or making more money.

Spending Less Money

Interested in budgeting, tracking and paying bills, and your account statements? Try MoneyTrackin, or Dimewise. Both of them allow you to track income and expenses, and know exactly where your money’s gone. Sharing a home or more with other people, and need to know exactly how much each person has to pay? BillHighway is targeted at college students and roommates, allowing shared expenses to be tracked. BillMonk has a similar capability, with additional features allowing you track occasional expenses. The mobile interface is intriguing – you can send text messages from your mobile phone, with brief details of the expenses, and update it later; ideal when you’re having a group dinner or event, and you need to track how much who owes you.

Foonance helps you consolidate your bank and other financial statements – while BillQ helps put all bills together. Now, you have no excuse for forgetting to pay!

Want to cut expenses? Plenty of help out there. Rentometer will tell you what the going rentals are for your town; you can decide whether you’re ok, or paying too much. Like shopping coupons, or knowing where to find deals? Retailmenot and Dealmine can help out. Or you can try Uask – you browse their collection, decide how much you want to offer – and you might just get it, too!

Other interesting shopping sites include Woot with a daily deal; or SaveFinder, which offers you a personal shopper to scout out the deals you want. Or try Medbillmanager, if healthcare costs are weighing you down.

Don’t forget to check out the second part – making more money.