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Financial Managment

Need to get your finances in order? Never have money to buy a software program? Well, now you can do it online, safe and secure.  Mint.com is an online budgeting tool that is FREE. The information is not linked to any specific accounts and only reads your information. Also, all data is protected and validated by VeriSign and TRUSTe. This site is by owned by Intuit (the Quicken folks).

Budget Tracker not only handles your personal finances, you can handle business transactions with invoices, estimates, balance sheets, and more. It also provides a calender and reminders to help you pay your bills on time.

Just need to setup a budget?  You can easily visualize your spending habits at Budget Simple.

AceMoney Lite is software that you download and can use offline if you prefer. It is said to be easy to download and easy to use, something that most people, not used to accounting software would prefer. You can even track investments and for online businesses and electronic sales inputs with PayPal, egNow, RegSoft, SWReg and Plimus.

Money Trackin is also a free online income and expense budget tracking tool that presents you with a clear view of your financial situation. 

A word of advise from a online financial program user, "Be careful and don't give away too much information for someone to be able to piece together enough facts to steal your identity. If you don’t include your name, birth dates, socials, bank account numbers, financial institution names, etc and just remain vague, you should be fine."

As with all things,  we must be careful and wise about how we share information. Like passwords, you don't want to post something that would give any hint of cracking your codes, through social networks, emails or online programs.  That being said, I am not truly concerned over any of these programs as none of them actually allow manipulation of your accounts.

So, with a new year, debt free will look good on you.. and free online tools are a great first step.

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