Comments on: Free Budgeting Software and The Best Online Planning Tools

By: Nancy

Nancy — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:37:09 +0000

outright.com seems to be a good, free budgeting tools specifically for small businesses. Check it out

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:48:00 +0000

Looking at all the online budget software services listed, I am left with these questions:

1. How good is the security?
2. How do they prepare for Federal tax filing? I currently use TurboTax and would like to have software for budgeting that feeds into it without the pain of setting up Quicken.
3. How long is a person’s budget data kept in arrears?
4. How can one capture the budget data for personal safe keeping?
5. If one discontinues the online service, can/how they capture the data back to their computer?

If would be helpful to have some general generic treatment of these questions, even though each service would have some different responses. Thanks for your information service online.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:34:10 +0000

If I could add another to the list as well, BudgetToolkit.com. It is a free service although I believe they offer a premium option also. Straightforward, spreadsheet type feel with nice flash graphs, reports, search capabilities, and support for electronic banking integration.

Yes – thanks for putting together this list – very nice Raymond!

By: Kathy Jo Pollack

Kathy Jo Pollack — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:19:46 +0000

Great list! Thanks for compiling it. This is a perfect start for many of my clients who are looking for budgeting software.

By: Jayanthi

Jayanthi — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:19:25 +0000

I am looking for a budget tool for a project which could display a report of transactions made by different users. The above list of tools are more for personal finances. Does anyone know of any free tool for a small business. Will be a really helpful information.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:27:36 +0000

Pearbudget is a great free software for budgeting folks. It’s not free though. there’s a trial period and then it’s like 3 dollars after that. If you want the old downloadable version it’s available for free but the new online site requires a subscription fee-still super cheap. Not sure how these companies make money when they only get like 1-3 dollars per month from each customer. They don’t even have all that many customers as quicken and microsoft money swipe them all

By: Kay

Kay — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:25:41 +0000

Yay…Free budgeting software programs are great features on the web. Thank goodness for freebies such as these free online tools. Quicken Online is a great recommendation….Yodlee is great too but you can usually get the Yodlee powered function from your bank or online brokerage. Banks like Bank of America offer Yodlee and so do brokers like Fidelity Investments.

The other free budget software tools you reviewed aren’t too bad either. I’ve tried and tinkered with many of the online budgeting programs and the ones that are regularly updated aren’t too bad. Some of the old free budgeting tools are no longer completely free though as most charge small nominal fees …like a few dollars a month for premium access. I think regardless, a few $2-5 per month is worth the enhanced budgeting features.

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:22:07 +0000

I am a BIG fan of using old fashioned Excel spreadsheets for my free budgeting needs. If I could I would still stick with paper as I feel like I get a better feel of my finances and accounting needs by cranking out numbers by hand. Maybe one day they will invent an electronic tablet that will allow me to write things out with pen and paper and have the data and numbers automatically transposed onto a computer program for easy software storage.

The list of free budget tools that you’ve provided is nice and all – but I’d recommend the Microsoft Excel spreadsheets you mentioned at the bottom than the more established tools at the top.

By: Elaine

Elaine — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:05:50 +0000

Some of these free budgeting software choices are pretty good but appear somewhat amateurish and support isn’t always guaranteed. I’ve tried most of them out and will probably go with the more established software programs like Quicken, Mint, or Wesabe. Pear Budget and Simple D Budget’s are two good free budget planning softwares though.

By: David Pitt

David Pitt — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:03:32 +0000

Hey, great list of online planning tools. Very informative too. I would like to add another one to the list, its called Billeo. Provides nifty features like paying bills online, stores password, saves receipts and gives bill payment reminders.It’s a cool toolbar and its free.

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:53:44 +0000

Thank you Raymond. I will make sure to let you know about the release and improvements as it gets closer.

By: Raymond

Raymond — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:49:51 +0000

Looking forward to the new BudgetPulse site Craig. Let us know when it’s officially out and if there are any new budgeting or premium features.

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:33:39 +0000

Thank you for including BudgetPulse in your list of budgeting software. We are releasing a brand new site in June that will visually enhance the site, allow for easier navigation, and will have improved functionality. If you have any questions on our upcoming release, please feel free to ask.

Craig Kessler
Marketing Director at BudgetPulse
craig@budgetpulse.com

By: Raymond

Raymond — Fri, 01 May 2009 08:26:53 +0000

Pat,

Other than Yodlee, I primarily use Intuit made Quicken products to handle most of my financial and budget planning needs as well. I particularly like the potential for software interoperability between the Intuit made software programs like Quicken 2009 and TurboTax. However, for frugal folks and the majority of the “money for the rest of us” types, the reviewed list of free budget software options provided above will do the trick as well. While some of them charge a small monthly fee for more enhanced premium budget accounting features, the fees are usually only $1-3 per month. Not too bad.

By: Pat

Pat — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 08:19:35 +0000

Hey Ray, Cool list of free budgeting software offers. This is something that I was searching for online when I stumbled onto your finance blog.

I’ve been using Yodlee through Fidelity Investments for some time now – highly recommend utilizing account aggregation programs as you indicated in your post. I can afford to utilize paid premium financial planning software packages like Quicken but it was nice to see some other free budget tools as well. Actually pretty surprised – some of the homemade amateur coded budgeting softwares look very professionally made. I had avoided some of them before but may try them out now to see if they’ll work for my needs.