That's what I want...

The best things in life are free
But you can keep them for the birds and bees
Give me money
That's what I want, that's what I waaaaaaaaant,
That's what I want...

So I decided to check out some of the online money management tools this week (in addition to playing around with Jott).
My usual disclaimer: I don't like the idea of putting my financials out on the web - I don't do online billpay, and I have one low-limit credit card that I'm willing to use to buy anything online. If presented with the opportunity to "buy it now" online using that credit card, or wait till the people are available to take my call at the brick-and-mortar site on Monday morning... I'm waiting till the weekend is over, thanks.

That said, I checked out a few of the sites listed on WallStreetFighter's list (awesome site name, that). Some of them are pretty obviously things that I'm not interested in - foonance and wasabe. I liked the idea of DimeTracker - but it requires that you use text messaging. (I think we've covered my feelings about cell phone usage in an earlier post - compound that with the fact that texts cost EXTRA money, and you know I'm just not going there, right?) Bummer.

Most of the money management and investing tools just aren't my speed right now. But then I came across Xpen$er - nice. They have a good basic site that actually lets you check out their FAQs, you can call in expenses over the phone (yay!) and it even has a mileage converter - even better. I may even sign up with Xpenser.

The concept of shared bills/IOU tracking sites is a little alien to me, but I could see the utility of a site like Billshare for roommates or housemates. Unfortunately, you can't "tour" the Billshare site without signing up, so I didn't get past the "that's a pretty good idea" phase. This is one feature that all of these sites should be aware of - If I can't check it out anonymously (without logging in) first, I'm sure as heck not going to give you any of my personal information (not even a junk email address).

I can't even get around the concept of Ripple - but then again, I'm not a big fan of borrowing or lending money to friends - I certainly don't want to be part of a network of people that I don't know that revolves around money!

Finally I visted RentOMeter - nice idea, but it doesn't seem to have much coverage here on the Shore. This is probably much more useful in more urban areas.

Enough about money - I'm off to visit LitLovers!