Best of Budgeting Tools on the Web

I found the Kipplinger.com web site review of budgeting and spending management tools provides a great review of many of the best available tools. Because tracking spending activity and trends is a critical element of effective financial planning I strongly urge that everyone use some budgeting and spending tracking tool. These appear to be the best available. Each is a bit different and you are sure to find one among these that will fit with your style and needs.

Please review these and compare them to the system you currently use. Consider making a change if one of these appears it will be more helpful to you.

·         Mint.com: Best Overall Site

·         ReadyForZero: Best for Debt Diggers

·         LearnVest: Best for Financial Newbies

·         Mvelopes: Best for Over-Spenders

·         Payoff.com: Best for Game Players

·         Yodlee: Best for Control Freaks

·         BudgetPulse: Best for Security Cynics

Which Budgeting Site is best for you?

So God Made a Banker

By Brett Arends

To be read in the voice of Paul Harvey.

And on the eighth day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need someone who can flip this for a quick buck.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone who doesn’t grow anything or make anything but who will borrow money from the public at 0% interest and then lend it back to the public at 2% or 5% or 10% and pay himself a bonus for doing so.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone who will take money from the people who work and save, and use that money to create a dotcom bubble and a housing bubble and a stock bubble and an oil bubble and a commodities bubble and a bond bubble and another stock bubble, and then sell it to people in Poughkeepsie and Spokane and Bakersfield, and pay himself another bonus.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone to build homes in the swamps and deserts using shoddy materials and other people’s money, and then use these homes as collateral for a Ponzi scheme he can sell to pensioners in California and Michigan and Sweden. I need someone who will then foreclose on those homes, kick out the occupants, and switch off the air conditioning and the plumbing, and watch the houses turn back into dirt. And then pay himself another bonus.”

So God made a banker

God said, “I need someone to lend money to people with bad credit at 30% interest in order to get his stock price up, and then, just before the loans turn bad, cash out his stock and walk away. And who, when asked later, will, with a tearful eye, say the government made him do it.”

So God made a banker

God said, “And I need somebody who will tell everyone else to stand on their own two feet, but who will then run to the government for a bailout as soon as he gets into trouble — and who will then use that bailout money to help elect a Congress that will look the other way. And then pay himself another bonus.”

So God made a banker

The Pundits (aka. Talking heads) are Never Wrong…

A new (ish) web site has begun to track the accuracy of the predictions made by the pundits and readers of tea leaves in a variety of domains (not the least of which is finance and investing).

BarryRitholtz explained the problem with predictions as follows in his recent blogpost on the matter:

Pundit tracker is an interesting new site that proclaims its mission as bringing accountability to the prediction industry.

The site notes the Media’s lack of institutional memory. This creates perverse incentives — Pundits learn that brash predictions generate news coverage. If it turns out that they are wrong, well, it hardly matters, as no one ever remembers or calls them out on it. On those occasions when the blind squirrel finds the occasional nut, they can selectively tout that correct call for self-promotional purposes. The entire cycle then repeats.

Please share the most interesting financial prediction you have seen in the past few months with us.

Please never take any prediction very seriously, even when the pundit got a previous prediction right, without looking into the fundamental basis for the prediction, considering the alternative possible scenarios and the overall track record of the pundit.

What the H&@! is Gross Domestic Product?

Referred to in the press virtually every minute. Referenced in every Fiscal Cliff, Fiscal Cliff II (son of Fiscal Cliff, aka. Debt Ceiling), Jobs and unemployment, and most all other finance and economics articles. What the heck is this really and why does it matter (and how does change in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) affect me – potentially)?

Great question!

Having spent some time looking at the fourth-quarter 2012 GDP report last week, it occurred to Commonwealth Financial’s Brad McMillan* that it would be “helpful to step back and take a look at exactly what GDP is, what it is composed of, how growth happens, and what it means.”

I offer to you Brad’s blog article: What is Gross Domestic Product? »

Please call or email us with any questions relating to your circumstances and investments that come to you.

*Brad McMillan is the chief investment officer of Commonwealth Financial Network where he also leads the Retirement Consulting division. He has degrees from Dartmouth College (BA), MIT (MS in real estate development), and Boston College (MS in finance) and holds the CFA®, CAIA, MAI, and AIF®, professional certifications. He has traveled around the world. In his free time, Brad reads extensively in history, math, and science and plays very bad golf.