A Tangled Financial Web: Making Sense out of Online Money-management Tools

By: Jenn Director Knudsen

Jim Taschetta of Burlingame, Calif., promised his 4-year-old daughter a day at the movies. They took in Finding Nemo, ate popcorn and other goodies and spent about $25 for the two-hour outing. Taschetta says parents often worry about how to finance their kids' college educations, but, he asks rhetorically, what about their first 18 years? "You have no idea how expensive it is until you actually have a child," says Taschetta, who also has a 2-year-old.

Taschetta not only is a concerned, budget-minded dad, he's also chief marketing officer of Yodlee, a Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company that helps consumers worldwide find efficient ways to manage money online. He implores parents to get their financial lives in order and to use money-management tools available online to do so. "With fairly little effort, a parent or anyone can get a lot of value out of an online tool," Taschetta says. And he says they don't need to be terribly tech-savvy to do so.

Here are some tips and tools parents can use to track their budgets, set financial goals, view their net worth, pay bills and do other transactions, all through Internet-based applications. These suggestions are by no means exhaustive, but they're a great start to better managing your finances.

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