gmsc’s money tips #11:

Even if you ignore every other money tip I give you, here’s one that suggest you don’t ignore - TRACK YOUR FINANCES!

Before you even enter one bit of data into a financial program, though, the first step should be putting together a financial crib sheet. If anything unfortunate should happen to you, your loved ones should be able to track down important records.

The next step is a little more what you would expect, finding a program to track financial spending. The king here is one that has sat on its thrown for more than a quarter of a century - Quicken. The variety of features, including internet-enabled tracking of your online accounts is a great help. Windows users will find more options for their systems than Mac users will, but either version of Quicken is a great way to start. There are even bonus features available on the website, if you look closely enough.

The other offline financial software solution is Microsoft Money, which has also gained a respectable following. It’s a good choice, assuming you’re running a Windows platform.

For the online financial programs, the clear winner is Mint. It has many (although not all) of the features of Quicken or Microsoft Money, but it has one feature neither of them does - it’s free!

Another good free online financial tracking program is Yodlee. As a matter of fact, you can’t really decide between Mint and Yodlee, because Yodlee is the financial software engine that powers Mint. Mint is a much better front-end (a dressing up, if you will) of Yodlee, but Yodlee is no slouch.