PearBudget: Personal Budgeting & Expense Tracking

I like to control of my finances by keeping track of expenses on a regular basis. A good old excel sheet is what I've been using to do this. Not because I love excel; it's just that I've not come across a single personal finance application (and there are MANY out there) that works for me the way I do.

The problems I have with most of these applications are their wasted attempts to connect everything from my bank accounts to the checks I give out to my credit card statements. I wouldn't generally bother too much about importing my online bank statement into my finance application even if my bank did have an online system that supported it. All I usually need is a simple way to compare my expenses against my income and keep track of the savings every month.

And that's one of the reasons why PearBudget's upcoming budgeting and expenses tracking application interests me so much. If it is anywhere even close to as good as their existing spreadsheet-based tool, I'll be the first one to start using it. Over the last few days of trying the excel sheet of PearBudget's personal finance tracking application, I've come to believe that it is precisely what I've been looking for all this while. It's much much better than the excel sheet I've been using and provides a very good one-place budgeting and tracking interface (I have never done a budgeting exercise before for lack of a decent tool).

If you've ever wondered where all that money you bring in every month goes, or even if you're just looking for a simple way to bring a little order to your financial chaos, give PearBudget a try.

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