Ah, this is going to be one of those blog posts where I try to list my reaction to as many things as possible in as short a time as possible. Got it.
The educational tools were, well, educational. That was a pretty good little "how it all fell apart" video. I couldn't think of any pressing financial issue I needed to research on MyMoney.gov, but it looked like it would be solid information about the basics.
My interest level rose when I tackled Banking 2.0. Understand, I just don't find personal finance and economics all that gripping, so one of the ways to pique my interest is to involve software and websites. But the security issues around online banking make this less fun than online music or video. I wonder if sites like Mint.com have been having an influence on software: Microsoft Money has vanished from stores. You can still get it online, but in general, it's gone, and it and Quicken were the big names for personal financial software. How do you judge the safety of these sites? At first, I wondered why anyone would trust their financial data to a free website, but then, Money could be forwarding my account information to Zanzibar every time I go online and I wouldn't know. Plus financial software leaves your data on your hard drive, which is difficult to erase securely when you're done with the computer. Just try thoroughly wiping a hard drive when the computer won't boot. Maybe Mint.com is no worse a risk.
On to the potential savings in my daily life. I don't own a car, so I skipped the entire driving section. My cell phone comes in cheaper than any of the plans at MyRatePlan.com. Self-sustainability, although noble as all get-out, is clearly not targeted to people who live in apartments: a woman who can't keep oregano alive in her windowsill for lack of sunlight is not going to be able to maintain a victory garden. I don't go to garage sales and thrift stores now, so I'm not going to start the habit. The pennypinching websites were an odd lot. I was pleased to see that I'm already doing lots of the tips on FrugalDad, although if you water down juices a là #31, I don't think you can count them as servings of fruit. I clicked on an article on Wisebread and found myself reading a product review of a webcam--what's that doing on a frugal living site? Finally, the coupon sites looked like an awful lot of effort for minimal reward.
I think I'm going to research Mint.com and ClearCheckbook more thoroughly, since they interested me the most. I'm hoping to find some expert opinions on whether or not they're safe enough to use (or at least no more risky than Money or Quicken).
