Because I love the internet and new technologies and because I work for an internet company, I spend a lot of time looking at new and emerging businesses. Lots of them are copycats of other recently launched websites, so I’ll fool around on those sites for 15 minutes and never go back again. Some of them are good enough ideas but I know I won’t have the time to ever make it a habit. Some of them are just home runs – Flickr (member since 2004), LinkedIn (member since 2004), Netflix (member since 2000), Bloglines (2004) and Twitter (2006) are sites I use pretty much every day, to name a few.
Recently I discovered Wesabe.com, a site which helps you to track finances and gives recommendations & tips on how you’re spending your money. It sounds like any other boring financial advice website until you find out that the tips and recommendations are given by the site’s users and not some dude on staff at the company. I signed up and found out right away how helpful it was. Each of your financial transactions comes with several tips based on the category – in other words, if you recently bought some furniture from Pottery Barn, there are recommendations for furniture of equal quality for cheaper somewhere else. If you grocery shop (don’t we all?) there are tips for shopping more smartly. If you buy music from ITunes, there are tips about how you have more freedom with your music if you buy elsewhere. It’s extremely valuable.
For example, our taxes this year were more complicated then usual, so I just dumped them off at H&R Block. Via Wesabe, I was able to find a tip that most banks offer a money market account where the interest you make is exempt to federal taxes. That would be a huge help for me as I’ve been maxing out my 401K the last two years and need to find somewhere to put money tax free after I’ve maxed out the retirement amount. It’s only a couple of months where that’s the case, but every little bit helps. Wesabe is really a terrific tool! Try it out.
And if the people at Quicken don’t acquire them, then their heads are not in the game!