Online Budget Tools

There are tons of free online budget tools available to help you manage your money. The Graduate (!) has assembled a list of painless money-saving tips and simple ways to approach budgeting. In this post, you’ll find some free online tools you can use to keep your budget in check. For a more extensive list, check out this blog.

ONLINE BUDGET TOOLS

YNAB (which stands for You Need A Budget…appropriate?) is a budget software tool that is specifically designed to help budget your money. The site was recommended by The New York Times, as well as U.S. News & World Report. Click here for a more detailed review of YNAB. Or, watch the clip below for an overview about the helpful software.

Mint quickly became popular for anyone wanting to manage their funds online. It’s a free online money management tool that allows you to link your checking, savings and credit card accounts to your Mint account. Once linked, all of your transactions are instantly linked to your Mint account. Here’s an example of what your budget section might look like using Mint:

The diagrams show your budget broken up into different spending habits. In this example, you can see how much money was spent on shopping, bills, and so on. Mint can also show you how much you’ve currently spent compared to the average amount you usually spend.

BudgetTracker tracks your budgets, bills and transactions then ties them together in a Calendar that sends you reminders when bills are due. The data on this site is also accessible on mobile devices to allow for easy checking.

BudgetPulse  stresses its simplicity, user friendliness and comprehensiveness. Another perk to this software is that it does not link directly to users’ bank account data. Here’s how BudgetPulse works:

Expensr  targets specific areas of spending, such as food and gas. You can see how much you’ve paid for these goods, then compare your spending with similar people so you know where you can improve. This software also offers “forecasting tools” to help you avoid any financial surprises.

FREE EXCEL BUDGET TEMPLATES

Although you can find an earlier post about budgeting using spreadsheets , below you can find a more extensive list of where to find different online templates. For your convenience, the sites have been separated for PC and Mac users.

Windows Excel Templates : Here you’ll find more than 30 free budget templates available to download. Templates range from general personal budgets to more specific spending, such as your wedding budget. These spreadsheets work best on PCs.

Mactopia: For the Mac, Microsoft made Mactopia, where you can search for templates by product. The selection isn’t as large, but there are still multiple budgeting options.