By: Revanche

Experimentation

November 9, 2006

I’m giving Yodlee a whirl! I’ve been using pen and paper for as long as I’ve had a credit card. While I like it and it works for me, I’m always half convinced that I should be using some sort of technological doodad to keep my finances in order; I do just about everything else online, why not this? More importantly, the sheer number of accounts I have are becoming overwhelming and I’m absolutely certain that I’m going to get so busy one day that I won’t have time to neurotically check every account six times a day, and I’ll miss a payment or something. It happens.

After all, the whole software thing sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? Upload all your finances into a single site or program that organizes everything for you and it makes your life easier! Yeah, I can get behind that. But, in past years, I’ve tried MSN Money and a really old version of Quicken and I just couldn’t stand them. I’m not sure if it was interminably waiting for an update or trying to separate out these cards from that account or having the software judgmentally sorting through my spending. Whatever it was I didn’t like about the other programs, I’m pretty sure the clincher was that none of the programs had a calendar with the payments written on the due dates like I do manually. This is a problem because I’m very visual when it comes to the calendar and need to see whole months in advance whenever I plan anything. But Yodlee does! If nothing else, their financial calendar has seduced me.

I’m not enjoying the process of adding accounts right now because I have to remember every username and password I’ve set up, but I do like the ability to nickname my accounts. I didn’t like how Citibank didn’t let me name any of my e-savings accounts. Here’s hoping it doesn’t take me as long to learn my way around and reconfigure the Yodlee account as it’s taken with Blogger!