Not too long ago, personal finance tools like Quicken and Microsoft Money used to be bound to the desktop. Exchanging information with your banks used to be a hassle. Keeping track of credit card purchases was often a question of waiting for statements to arrive by mail and then entering data by hand. Today, free tools like Mint , moneyStrands and Wesabe make it easy to track all of this information. Thanks to this, you can now get a better overview of your personal finances than ever before. Sponsor Editor’s note : This story is part of ReadWriteWeb’s Personal Finance series, a weekly, three-month-long look at how the Internet has transformed personal finance. Up until April 15, which is the deadline for U.S. readers to file their taxes, we’ll be looking at how personal finance has evolved, analyzing top web tools and posting video of our conversations with the people who are shaping the online world of personal finance. If you are interested in sponsoring the rest of this Content Series on Personal Finance, please contact our COO Sean Ammirati . Mint: Leading the Charge Currently, the two most well-known online tools for personal finance management are arguably Mint and Intuit’s Quicken Online . Mint stood out from the pack early on because the company made it extremely easy to keep track of all your expenses. After giving Mint access to your bank and credit card account, the service simply downloads your financial information at regular intervals and organizes it. Mint can even track your 401(k) for you. Mint launched in September 2007 and quickly became the darling of the Web 2.0 world. Unlike most of its desktop-bound competitors, Mint managed to talk to virtually every bank and credit card issuer from day one. In October 2008, Mint came out of beta . Today, the company has more than 1.7 million registered users and sees roughly 700,000 active users every month. In October 2009, the company was signing up 30,000 new users per week. Mint’s success didn’t go unnoticed by the incumbent market leaders and Intuit acquired Mint in October 2009. In November 2009, Intuit announced that it would begin to phase out Quicken Online in favor of Mint. Microsoft suspended sales of Microsoft Money on June 30, 2009 and doesn’t plan to compete in the market anymore . Correction : In December, Microsoft actually announced a plan to enter the personal finance market again with a Mint-like tool it is developing in collaboration with Citi. Beyond Mint While Mint gets most of the mindshare on the web these days, it’s by no means the only player in this market. Indeed, the success of Mint has given rise to a plethora of similar tools and legitimizes the efforts of companies that tried to enter this market before Mint. ClearCheckbook.com , for example, launched in May 2006. The company focuses on bringing checkbook management online. A number of other tools are competing more directly with Mint. Wesabe , for example, also focuses on giving users an overview of how they spend their money. Sadly, Wesabe makes downloading your information from your checking and credit card accounts a bit more difficult than Mint. Since acquiring Exepnsr , Strands now also offers its own personal finance tool for setting up and tracking personal budgets and staying on top of your finances. Geezeo – which was founded in 2006, and also looks a lot like Mint, has a very strong focus on budgeting. Most of these tools focus on the U.S. market, but more and more of them are also now available outside of the United States. Kublax , for example, offers a Mint-like service in the U.K. Going Mobile Just like almost every other category of online tools, personal finance tools are also making the move to mobile. Mint and Wesabe , for example, offer both an iPhone app and mobile-optimized websites. Most importantly, all of these services are also able to send out alerts to your phone – either through push alerts on the iPhone or as text messages. Whenever you run the risk of exceeding your credit card limit, for example, these services will send you an alert. Of course, a number of banks have also gotten into this game and now offer their own mobile apps. The Bank of America , Chase Mobile and Wells Fargo apps are currently among the top 10 most downloaded free finance iPhone apps, for example. When it comes to paying your bills, apps like BillMinder and BillTracker make it easy to never forget when a bill is due. What’s Next? Over the last few years, the web has clearly transformed the way we use personal finance software. Over the next few months, we will have a closer look at the current generation of personal budgeting and finance tools on the web. We will also analyze the current trends around online finance software. This is the first post in our upcoming series about personal finance. If you are interested in sponsoring the rest of this Content Series on Personal Finance, please contact our COO Sean Ammirati . Discuss

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How The Web is Transforming Personal Finance

The federal government reported today that the unemployment rate fell to 10% for the first time since the recession started last year. But are the numbers accurate? Mint.com is not so sure. The company is giving its own take on what it really means to be unemployed with an amusing video they are calling ” The Unemployment Game. ” Sponsor We are curious why Mint.com would take on unemployment as an issue. But take a look at Mint.com and you see the company is clearly trying to take economic trends and provide their own spin on what the numbers mean. For companies in our space, the unemployment issue hits home. Thousands of people have been let go from their jobs. Jobs are hard to come by. So this is a perspective that has some resonance. Free budget software – Mint.com Mint.com makes the point that we need to take a closer look at unemployment figures. The government tells us that the recession is over and the economic stimulus is working. But we still have to be thinking about how the Fed reports its numbers. Mint.com says that if you count everyone, the unemployment rate should be 17.2%. The video is amusing. It’s a smart approach that gives a different perspective on the economy. We cover a lot of enterprise issues but the perspectives we see from companies often focuses exclusively on their products and other narrowly focused issues. Mint.com takes a different approach. They are a personal finance service, but the issues they cover affect anyone who works in the business world. Discuss

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Mint.com: Are You Really Unemployed?

Last night we wrote about Forrester’s prediction that online holiday retail sales will grow 8% this year to $44.7 billion. comScore had similar numbers about the growth of online retail – toy web sites grew 9% in October, as did the retail apparel segment. Online personal finance service Mint.com has joined the festive statistics parade, with data analyzing some of the U.S.’s leading retailers. Mint analyzed spending data and compared it to one year ago. The data is for top performers in the third quarter this year, based on “average monthly spend per user versus recession lows.” Sponsor Interestingly, Mint’s data says that Q4 sales will not be as good as last year – which is the opposite of what Forrester predicts. However Mint does say that consumer electronics and clothing are set to rise in Q4. Check out the charts below and compare them to Forrester and comScore’s data . The highlights, via Mint.com: Aeropostale – the clothing retailer is up 10% year-over-year, having grown consistently quarter over quarter. Best Buy – the electronics retailer is up 1% Q3 year-over-year, hit a recession low of -7%. Fry’s – while competitor Best Buy’s sales exceed where they were at this point last year, Fry’s remains down -7% year-over-year (though it’s up from a -16% recession low). J.Crew – the clothing retailer’s lowest point was -3%, but it has since entirely corrected and even improved sales 4% year-over-year. Sears – the department store’s sales are up 8% over this time last year, having dipped to -10%. Target – after an initial drop to -8% in Q109, Target has halved that loss and is currently down only -4% year-over-year. See also: Online Retail Thriving: 8% Growth Expected This Holiday Season Top Internet Trends of 2000-2009: E-commerce Discuss

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Mint Data Shows Online Retail Rebounding