Pragmatic Finance

As I previously wrote, a great method keeping track of your accounts and finances is by using Yodlee to consolidate them into one place. Yodlee has decided to upgrade to something called the MoneyCenter Platform. They have a demo and some screenshots to show off the changes and new look. It looks like they are enhancing the ability to manage and categorize expenses and transactions. They also say they are adding a financial calender and Yodlee billpay using credit card accounts. It will be very interesting to see how the latter functions. I use the MBNA billpay feature on their cards and it is incredibly useful.

I have collected a mountain of different banking and investing accounts and it was pretty difficult to keep track of all of them. About a month ago I started looking into getting Yodlee Oncenter. Adding accounts is very simple and it makes it easy to stay on top of all your finances. You merely have to browse each category and select the account you have and later it will ask you to input your login and password. It then aggregates all of your accounts together on one page. I had been wary of trying the service for a long time because I was a little uncomfortable with one account having logins and passwords for all my accounts. Well, after sitting down to figure out my networth I gave in. I think I will use a different password than the one I have been using for most accounts, however, as an added precaution.

It has been extremely useful. I am able to look at all my bank accounts, investment accounts, credit cards, reward programs, loans, bills, and even email. It includes the amount in the account, any transactions, and lists the holdings you have in your investment accounts. This is also useful if you have accounts that aren’t compatible with ms money or quicken. The only account that I couldn’t find was tradeking, a fairly new brokerage company, and HTH bank, a rather unknown bank. This is pretty impressive as the number of bank and credit cards I have is in the double digits each.

I recently found out at Savvy Saver that there are many other companies who provide their own version of yodlee. So I decided to test out Fidelity’s Full View. It was pretty much the same although there were a few things that seemed to be missing. I didn’t see a section of alerts or bill reminders, which is especially useful for credit cards. I also couldn’t find chase’s rewards program, choose myrewards. It does seem less cluttered though, and I also like the way they displayed the portfolio section better. Nothing real major though.

I would definately recommend getting it. Ironically, I discovered I could view my Federal Direct student loans at Yodlee before I realized you could view them at Direct Loan Servicing. If you don’t see an account you have, you should probably head over to the yodlee forums, one of which is a forum to request new accounts to be added. I actually feel more comfortable now as I think I will be able to spot any fraudulent transactions faster than I did when my Citibank Debit card was stolen. The price of free is also cheaper than that of MS Money or Quicken. And I don’t even know if both of those services are compatible with all of my accounts.

I love getting things for free. Free Money Finance has a giveaway that appears to be going on daily. The winner receives the book Career Intensity. His review uses the phrase “a guide to proactively managing your career for maximum results” to describe it. He seems to have really enjoyed the book.

Amazingly, I won a copy this week. I had only tried a few times before I did. I hope to read it sometime this summer and write my own review of it. The contest he seems to have daily isn’t too difficult. You must post a comment to the daily giveaway thread and one comment is chosen at random. That person wins the book. You have to check back at the site to see if you won the next day and if you did you simply email him your shipping address. Pretty easy. If you don’t see one of the giveaway threads click on the category “Giveaway.” The posts have a much more detailed explanation of contest than I gave. You can’t beat free.

I saw this over at Savvy Saver. It appears that a professor from the University of Utah has made an introductory course in personal finance and posted it online. It has most of the things you would need to take a course such as a syllabus, homework, handouts, and class notes. I was looking at it earlier and it seems to be pretty well designed. I would check it out if you have the time. It sure beats paying money for a course.