Budget Planner

Have you ever dreamed of having your own personal budget planner? Someone who could look over all your accounts and identify where all your money is going, where you could actually save some money and put together a realistic budget that fits your spending habits?

There is no question that effective budget planning begins with knowing how much cash is being spent, what it is being spent on and how much cash is left to spend. Evaluating your current spending patterns is the first step in developing a budget that will allow you to pay all of your living expenses as well as find ways to save money.

Fortunately, there are several free personal financial planning programs that help you to manage and grow your money. Most of these programs are easy to use and they offer a budget planner or calculator to help you sort out your accounts and analyze your spending. Many even offer an automated budget planner that will evaluate your spending patterns and categorize all of your current expenses, develop a budget based on your spending habits and look for additional opportunities for savings.
What are some of the features you should look for in a good budget planner or financial planning software package?

 Safety and security of your information
 Ease of use
 Ability to have all of your accounts managed from a single location
 Automatic daily downloads of all transactions and balances
 Automated categorization of purchases
 Easy, graphical displays of spending and savings
 Easy budgeting tools, automated budgeting tools
 Savings comparisons on credit cards, bank accounts, 401k and brokerage accounts to find the best deals and capture savings
 Export tax information
 Advice on paying off debt, loans, retirement and more
 Mobile apps
 Real time alerts
 Around the clock account monitoring for suspicious activity

Security is critical. Make sure that any budget planner application you choose to use is completely and 100% safe. The security practices of the web application you choose to use should be the same as online major US financial institutions with online banking services.

Do investigate the many budget planner applications available. Many are free and they can save you a lot of time, headaches and effort managing your personal finances.