Lady LUX

One positive aspect of the current economic climate is it has led to many of us becoming more conscious of our spending habits and gaining a grasp on our financial health. You could say we are becoming better stewards of our own lives. According to an article by CNN,

“Two years ago, the average American spent $101 for every $100 they made,” Gaskell said. “As of January of this year, they are spending about $95 of that $100 and putting away $5, so what we are seeing is pretty phenomenal in the uptick of customers.”

While personal finance can be overwhelming, there are tools out there to make this area of your life painless. For those of you that feel drawn to take a more proactive approach in your finances, here are a two FREE websites that really can help:

Mint.com -– A recent start-up and winner of a plethora of awards, Mint.com aggregates all of your accounts and allows you to see balances and transactions anytime. The nifty program creates a pie chart to visually see where money is going, which helps when deciding where to cut back. The folks at Mint.com are so great, they even built features that help you prepare a budget and send alerts when things are out of balance. Don’t just take our word for it, see for yourself why this is such a great site:

In five minutes or less, you’ll see where you’re spending your money, understand how your investments are performing, and set up realistic budgets. Set up email and SMS alerts and you’ll be automatically updated whenever there’s an important change in your finances. Only Mint.com finds you personalized ways to save money, using patent-pending software which analyzes your current spending. The typical Mint.com user finds $1,000 in savings in their first visit. Source:Mint.com

JustThrive.com—Bundles all your financial info and gives advice to achieve goals based on lifestyle and perception of money. This is definitely not your parent’s financial institution as its focus is to help 20 and 30 something’s achieve control over their financial lives. Thrive analyzes your financial health and gives guidance to achieve goals. And when things aren’t quite right, the system sends alerts when things go awry. It’s like having your own personal financial coach—right online! How LUX-tastic can financial planning be?!?

We analyze your financial information and calculate your financial health, which accurately predicts your financial stability in the long term. Based on this understanding, Thrive will then give you specific advice to help you improve. Source: Justthrive.com/a>

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