Hack your money - The best financial websites

Don't worry. Nothing here is illegal. It's the good meaning of the word "hack." These are some great online services you can use to track and control your money so you can save and spend smarter. Note: All of these services are free to use.


mint.com - The best way to manage your money
Give them all your bank accounts, stocks, credit and debit cards, your budget, your goals, and more. (Privacy an issue? Don't worry, they use 256 bit encryption - better than most banks.) It will categorize your spending for you, compare it to your budget and notify you by email and/or SMS if you are overbudget or if anything strange is going on.

paypal.com - Easily Send and Receive Money
Owned by eBay, PayPal has become, next to credit card, the most poplular payment method on web. You can enter a credit card, debit card, and/or bank account and transfer money between any of your own or other people's accounts. For example, you could pay your friend for taking care of your dog using your credit card. You could also transfer money from your checking to your savings account.

wheresgeorge.com - The United States Currency Tracking Project
This one's for fun, but it can make a great hobby. You may have seen a bill with a stamp on it telling you to go to wheresgeorge.com. No, its not some government trap. It's a website that track bills. You enter the bills serial number and the zip code where you currently have it and see where it's been before you. From then on, you can track the bill as it travels across the country to different people who enter it. In order to get more people to enter your bill, you can write something like "Track me at wheresgeorge.com" on your bills, then spend them somewhere so that others will get the bill. People who make a hobby out of it will actually stamp their bill and enter every one they get.

google.com/finance - Real-time market data
Get up-to-date stock info and business news, provided by Google through Google Finance. The interactive charts let you compare stocks quickly, find trends in certain time ranges, and read news articles that relate to a spike or drop in the stock price.

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