money

Quicken 2010: Smoother money management?

With Quicken 2010, Intuit strives to make its classic money management application easier to navigate and simpler to understand in less time, thanks to spruced-up visuals. Although a solid balance-keeper and financial assistant, Quicken needs every boost it can get. Web-based software is growing more sophisticated and stylish every day and users are increasingly less wary of dealing with banking online. These conditions form two pincer points squeezing traditional desktop software like Quicken.

Many of Quicken 2010's additions are cosmetic changes that streamline and simplify its offering. There's a set-up wizard that guides you through importing your financial … Read more

iPhone app tracks your income in real time

Remember the Death Clock, that oh-so-depressing site that counts down the time you have left to live?

I won't say this is the exact opposite, but it's in the ballpark: Earn-O-Meter for iPhone tallies up your income, in real-time, while you work.

The idea of this tongue-in-cheek app is to help you endure workday drudgery by showing how much money you're earning while "sitting through pointless meetings, dull conference calls, and inane conversations with nitwits in the workplace." (The developer's words, not mine.)

And, let's face it, wouldn't it be nice if … Read more

BillShrink delivers personal savings recs

Online money-saving tool BillShrink launched on Tuesday a new Savings and CDs feature designed to help people find the highest interest rates.

BillShrink, which also offers help on finding cheaper cell phone plans, more advantageous credit cards, and low gas prices, told me in a conference call Monday that it's on track to help users save more than $1 billion by year's end across all three of its money-saving features.

With its Savings and CDs tool, BillShrink now enables people to take the cash they've saved and invest it in a savings account or a certificate of … Read more

Five iPhone apps that can save you money

As I often tell people, it's not the price of the iPhone that bothers me--it's the monthly fees! (Grumble, grumble, AT&T, grumble.)

Alas, while there's no way to get around that $70/month minimum, at least I can use my iPhone to save money on other things: gas, groceries, books, DVDs, and even energy. Let's take a look at five killer apps that can help you pocket extra cash.

BetterDeal Next time you find yourself standing in a supermarket trying to figure out which size box of corn flakes provides the best bang for … Read more

Shoeboxed gets smarter e-receipt scanning

Shoeboxed announced this week that it has improved the way it handles digital receipts sent to its online filing system. The company, which scans and hosts paper receipts, business cards and full-size documents, can now pick out specific information from forwarded e-mails containing purchase information, and put it into one of the system's 15 purchase classifications.

Like users would do with purchases on travel services like TripIt and Worldmate, simply sending the confirmation e-mail to your Shoeboxed address means that it gets filed along with the rest of your expenses. The goal is to make it easier for customers … Read more

Simple checkbook balancer

Checkbook offers users a chance to keep their finances in order with this simple program. Utilizing a familiar design and garnering fantastic results, this may be a dream come true for those who dread balancing their checkbooks each month.

The program's interface is reminiscent of the inside of a checkbook. The entry fields are intuitive and should not be a problem to navigate. There is also an excellent step-by-step Help file to guide anyone who is not perfectly comfortable with the program. Balancing our books was delightfully simple. All we had to do was fill in the appropriate fields … Read more

The 404 416: Where our stocks are on fire and Jill hoses us down

Jill Schlesinger of CBS' MoneyWatch joins the show to talk about the economy. So it turns out that things aren't going to collapse, and we're not going to have to sell our bodies in a barter system. That doesn't mean, however, that we're out of the woods, and Jill is here to show us the way out. Throw in a little bit of health care, a little bit of Social Security, and a garlic smell? Only on The 404!

For the last couple of months, stocks have been soaring more than 50 percent since their March low. Jill says all that means is that the market doesn't think we're headed for Great Depression 2.0, but that doesn't mean we're out of trouble. In the dark, we imagine what V-, U-, and W- recoveries would look like. Strange... Justin, is that your hand on my leg?

Further down the line, we jump into the health care debate. Jill tells us her generation is screwing our generation and not in a good way. Essentially, they took all the good health care, and we (the 20-somethings) will just not be able to afford the premium "best health care" in the world, when we really need it. And somehow, Wilson reveals some of his Republican leanings? Say what?

Finally, we get into personal savings for the future, and we pick up the ashes of our 401(k)s. So while your parents may have lost a bundle on their retirement funds, we 20-somethings still have another 40 years before we really have to worry about our returns. Meanwhile, Social Security is a toss-up. Jill wants to advise President "Barry" Obama that the easy solution to fixing the "Third Rail" of American politics is just tying benefits to an age index. People are just living too long...death panels, any one?

Wow! So we hope you finally learned something on The 404. We sure did! Send in your feedback to the usual at the404 [at] cnet [dot] com. Follow Jill on Twitter. Or leave us a voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET, and you can debate us on the finer points of the liquidity of the money supply and U6 unemployment figures.

Episode 416 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Subscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Nokia unveils new mobile financial service

Mobile phone maker Nokia on Wednesday announced the launch of a financial service called Nokia Money, designed to let consumers pay bills and merchants and send money to friends and family using their cell phones.

Nokia believes the service will help people in the U.S. and in emerging markets who are not served by banks or other traditional financial outlets.

"In many countries, mobile phone ownership significantly exceeds bank account usage, suggesting that many mobile phone users have very limited or no access to basic financial services," said Mary McDowell, Nokia's chief development officer.

The new … Read more

Mint.com starts keeping an eye on your budget

Mint.com is the premiere web-based money management solution available Tuesday. The site pulls transaction information from your various financial accounts and presents the data in a beautiful, easily digestible format. CEO Aaron Patzer boasts that 50 percent of Mint's users have used the service to stick to a budget for the first time in their lives. Hoping to raise that number even more, its latest update, available now, focuses on making it easier for users to control their spending with advanced budgeting tools.

While Mint already had some budgeting features before the new update, it was mostly simplistic … Read more

User-friendly home-accounting app

Simple, powerful, easy to use--these assets go in the credit column for this app. This home-accounting package will help you realize your desire to reign in your spending practices to make sure outgo doesn't outweigh income.

Millionaire 2020 launches a simple tabbed interface--plain but functional--with a row of buttons. A robust Help feature provides details on how to get the most from the app, but a first-time user can determine how to use this software just by looking at the interface. This app performed very well during our tests. We liked the simplicity it provided for entering recurring items, … Read more