海角大神

For those of you unaware of the news, Wesabe, an online personal finance information manager that I quite liked because of their strict security methods, is 鈥� at least in terms of their personal finance management tools, as their discussion forums will remain open.

In the past, I鈥檝e recommended Wesabe as an alternative to Mint for those (like me) who are very concerned about privacy issues and are hesitant to share their account information and personal data with yet another resource.

So, what alternatives are there to Wesabe? In building this list of personal finance data aggregation tools, I鈥檝e kept three principles in mind.

First, the tool does not require any personal information from you whatsoever. I鈥檓 only interested in tools that maintain strict privacy.

Second, the tool makes it possible to see all of your personal finance information in one place. This is really the point of this exercise, after all.

Third, the tool is well-supported enough that you can find assistance for your problems online. In other words, if you鈥檙e trying to do something with the program and run into trouble, you can seek help fairly easily.

Here are the five best tools I鈥檝e found that do this.

Microsoft Excel is what I use to manage my personal finance data. It鈥檚 simply an incredibly powerful spreadsheet program, capable of generating all kinds of views of my data and whatever charts and graphs I can invent. It makes importing the data pretty easy via copying and pasting or importing CSV files.

There are two big drawbacks to Excel, though. One, to really get the best parts of the software, you have to climb a fairly steep learning curve. Two, it鈥檚 costly. There鈥檚 no way around it 鈥� Excel is expensive. However, there is a ton of support for Excel online 鈥� virtually any question you come up with has an answer that can easily be found. Find out more about Excel at .

Quicken鈥檚 inclusion here might surprise people, since it鈥檚 usually known for automatic retrieval of account data. However, if you choose to manually enter the data yourself 鈥� or import it from downloaded CSV files from your financial institutions 鈥� Quicken can operate quite well without having any of your account information.

Quicken is easily the most full-featured option when considering just personal finance data, but it鈥檚 also costly, as retail versions of Quicken sell for a variety of prices depending on your exact needs. You can find out more at .

OpenOffice is very similar to Excel in many ways 鈥� it鈥檚 a full featured spreadsheet program. Even better, it鈥檚 absolutely free, as it鈥檚 open source software. Of course, that鈥檚 not to say it鈥檚 an absolutely perfect alternative to Excel, either. There are some bugs in the software that crop up just often enough to drive me crazy and the interface isn鈥檛 as slick.

However, it鈥檚 free. This takes away one of the big drawbacks of Excel 鈥� the price 鈥� and replaces it with a number of smaller ones 鈥� a less intuitive interface and some software bugs. I used this for a long time, but eventually migrated back to Excel when bugs frustrated me one time too many. However, one can鈥檛 argue with the price and recent reviews have indicated that it鈥檚 more stable than in the past. You can find out more at .

PearBudget captures many of the features of Quicken in an online service that doesn鈥檛 grab your account information, either. In fact, if there鈥檚 a successor to the functionality of Wesabe, it鈥檚 probably PearBudget.

It鈥檚 important to remember, though, that PearBudget pretty much does what it says. It helps you create a budget and track your spending within that budget. It does not help you track investments or income growth. However, if budget management is what you need, PearBudget is probably the best tool for you. You can use the paid online version at or try out a free spreadsheet version at .

An old fashioned ledger seems archaic, but it works. I have a lot of readers that simply use a printed ledger to record every dollar coming in and every dollar going out of their home.

A paper ledger is really straightforward to use 鈥� just write in the expense or source of income, the amount of that expense or income, and carry forward your new balance. It simply works and it maintains as much privacy as you wish. Frugal Dad has a great article on 鈥� it really does work.

What solutions do you use for keeping track of your finances without sharing your account information? (Yes, yes, I know there are a lot of great tools that require account data, but that鈥檚 not the focus today.)

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