There are many online personal finance tools available to keep your finances in order. Along with big banks trying to do their best to keep the faith of their clients by establishing such tools, there are personal sites, like mint.com, that provide the service for free.

This has to be the favorite of the moment because of how easy it is to use.  Mint.com consolidates all of your online accounts into one easy to view place. You simply open an account and allow mint.com access to your accounts, like your checking, savings, investment accounts, retirement accounts etc. It sounds scary to put all of your user names and passwords in the same place on an internet site, but mint.com does not store passwords and is encrypted so that nobody can get your password when you log in.  Mint.com will send you email or text alerts when your balances are low, when you are overly spending in a budget category – for instance if you set your grocery budget for $300 a month but you spent $500 – and when a check has cleared in your account.

Here is a video on mint.coms safety.

Credit Karma allows you to get your credit score for free, so long as you sign up as a Credit Karma user. The site gives you credit score comparisons and tools, a personalized sumamry of your savings, and doesn’t have any hidden fees. The only catch is that you will get notifications for financial services based on your credit score, but you don’t have to take any of the offers. The site also has some good tools to help you with buying a house, paying down debt, interest rate trends and more.

Motley Fool is an amazing site that teaches people about personal finance, with a fun twist. Normally a dry boring topic, finance is made fun with this witty and informative. Visitors can learn about anything about investment for capital gain or retirement funds in easy to learn and understand terms. In addition to their investment information, they also have the Fool Labs, which further aims to educate the common and sophisticated investor.

Annual Credit Report is the only credit reporting site that gives you your three credit reports from Experience, Equifax, and TransUnion for FREE. Other sites, like freecreditreport.com, will make you sign up for special offers which are not free in order to see your report. It is imperitive that you look at your credit report at least three times a year and that you are also checking those of your kids if you have children. Their information can also be compromised and you don’t want them to turn 18 and be welcomed into an unforgiving financial world with bad credit.

Chase BluePrint is a great program for people that have a chase account. It offers strategies on how to pay down credit card debt in four valuable tools: Full Pay, Split pay, Finish It and Track It. Full pay lets you set up your account so that you pay off the entire balance every month. Split pay allows you to pay off larger purchases seperate from other payments by setting a pay off date. Pay Down sets a payment schedule based on a goal date of when you want to pay your debt off and Track It tracks your spending trends and aims to keep you on focused on your pay off goals. For more information visit :

These are just a few tools you can use to better your finances at home. One thing everyone can do is to Set up low-balance alerts with your own bank. Many financial institutions have the ability to  send you an e-mail or text when your balance reaches the danger zone. You can and should be in total control of your money, and these tools will make it easier.