Make a mint (.com)
I've been trying to test out a website that was recently reviewed by the Wall Street Journal called Mint.com. Unfortunately, my efforts have been for naught, due to some technical difficulties on my end, so I can't offer you a first-hand review. But I'll talk about the service and how it works, because it seems like it would be pretty useful. (I do want to stress that my technical difficulties are my own - they really have nothing to do with the site.)
The basic idea is that you can connect all your bank accounts, investments, loans, mortgages, etc. all in one place for you to access easily. This way, you can keep an eye on your budgets, on what you owe, and even set specific goals, like saving up for a vacation. Oh, and it's totally free.
What I think is even more innovative, is that the site looks for opportunities for you to save cash, such as higher interest savings accounts or lower interest credit cards, and makes commission from selling you the products. In other words, they make money by saving yours.
The one thing that's important to mention is that for all this to work, you need to give the website access to your accounts, which means giving them your usernames and passwords. This may seem a little weird, but they promise that they use the same security banks do, and that because they aren't a bank, no money can be moved - just viewed.
I don't want to go on and make this sound like any more of an advertorial than it already does - especially because I haven't even had the chance to test out the features it advertises - but it does sound like this could be really useful. If you try it out, leave a post about how you find the site and whether you think what they're offering works well for you (both generally, and in terms of specific products).
