Photo: Steve Rhodes

If your New Year’s resolution included some sort of financial goal, odds are you’ve struggled to keep up with it already. While most people know they should keep some sort of budget, and many genuinely try to, most run into the reality of it all: tracking all those receipts and logging each purchase takes a huge amount of time. Even for those who started with the best intentions, most soon fall behind. That’s why a growing number of people are turning to web- and mobile-based personal finance solutions. Plus, you can access your data from anywhere and it’s easy to keep up with your expenses.

If your main struggle with finances has been forcing yourself to sit down after a long day at work to balance your checkbook, read on for our roundup of a few tools that can turn the tide with the best personal finance apps out there.
you want to:

Manage your accounts with the least work possible

Mint.com: Web, iPhone (free)

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Mint is a free web-based application that tracks your spending and your account balances. Mint’s claim to fame is that the site automatically retrieves your financial data from your banks, credit card companies and the like, and tracks your net worth, spending and even divides your purchases into categories for you — so that Amex charge from Taco Bell at 1:43 a.m. on Saturday will automatically get classified as “food.” From here, it’s easy to set budgets for each category and even receive texts or e-mails when you’re low on funds or about to go over your budget in a category.

The downside to all this is that, yes, you’re giving Mint.com all your financial information so they can review your complete financial picture. The information is held on their servers, and they claim to use the same level of security as bank websites do, but you’ll need to head over to Mint.com to see if the security policy is something you’re comfortable with. If you are, mint is a free, powerful and nearly totally automated service to track your finances.

Pros: Free, versatile, automatic, good companion website
Cons: Requires you to share your financial data, not as powerful as more complex tools
you want to:Control what gets tracked and how by hand

Pocket Money: iPhone ($4.99)

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If you’re hesitant to hand your finances over to a company like Mint.com to be automated, no need to worry: There are lots of options that allow you to track your spending by hand. And if you own an iPhone, then Pocket Money is worth checking out. Features on Pocket Money include support for multiple accounts — checking, savings and credit cards — and a deep set of options to configure repeating transactions. So you can put in your car payment to apply monthly rather than having to do it by hand each month. The budgeting section allows you to set up the required monthly budgets, but also supports other budget lengths from daily all the way up to annually. Once everything is in, the reporting feature will give you access to graphs and charts to help you analyze your finances. Finally, your information can be exported to both Quicken and MS Money, so you log spending on the road and then work with the data when you’re back home.

Of all the apps we reviewed, this one has the most competition in its category. There are many alternatives to Pocket Money, so look at a few before deciding — many apps have a free demo version available, so there’s no reason not to take a few for a spin. Still, Pocket Money gets our vote for having a large feature set, the ability to export data to other programs, and it even allows in-app purchase of additional reports, graphs and so on for people who want even more features.

Pros: Flexible account setup, repeating transaction and auto-repeat speed up entry, powerful budget features
Cons: iPhone only, $4.99 while some other apps are free, advanced features require additional in-app purchases

Send and receive payments from anywhere with PayPal (free)

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While not a budgeting software, PayPal has a number of robust features that deserve a mention. If you bill clients directly or work freelance, PayPal payments are a quick and easy way to move money around. With access to the web or your phone, you can send payment requests or even pay others. Whether you’re trying your hand at using eBay as a side income or tracking billing and payments for your personal business, PayPal can be an indispensable part of the process. And if you’re trying to curb your spending, try this trick: PayPal offers free debit card accounts that can be “charged” instantly with funds from your PayPal account. So, move some money to the PayPal card as your “fun money,” and when the card’s out of funds, you’ve exhausted your entertainment budget for the week. This kind of self discipline can help you stick to a budget.

Pros: Free, easily pay and send bills to vendors/clients, debit card lets you keep funds earned via PayPal separate from your other finances
Cons: Only moves money, so you need a second app to track spending and budgets
you want to:

Cut back on impulse spending on credit: Debt Dog ($0.99)

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We all know that buying on credit can add a lot to the “true cost” of our purchases, and we’ve been told that paying more than the minimum can dramatically cut the time to pay off debts. But do you know just how to calculate these changes? Debt Dog makes it easy; you just select the interest rate for a purchase, and the amount to be borrowed. Debt Dog then calculates the true cost of the loan (all accompanied by the oh-so-helpful sound effect of money being flushed down a toilet). You get the amount it will cost after finance charges, and how many months it will take you to pay off the debt. You can also add additional payments on top of the minimum and Debt Dog will show the savings in interest and the faster payoff. If you’ve struggled with putting things on your credit card, or you’re thinking of making a major purchase like a car, the eye-opening calculations from Debt Dog are a bargain at 99 cents.

Pros: Simple interface, easy to understand
Cons: Limited application, no down payment option for larger purchases
you want to:

Track mileage to expense for work or deduct from your taxes: MileBug ($1.99)

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If you haven’t been tracking your mileage, you’ve been throwing money away. You can, of course, expense qualified travel expenses for your job, but you can also be deducting travel from your taxes. It’s beyond the scope of this article to explain what mileage you can deduct, but study up — at $0.55 cents a mile the deductions can add up to huge savings at tax time. If you’re ready to start tracking mileage, check out one of the many mileage apps in the app store.

We like MileBug; it has a simple user interface and powerful functionality for people who need to track mileage for multiple vehicles or multiple businesses. You simply set the starting odometer before you start your drive, then ending odometer value when you reach your destination. The app calculates mileage then logs the trip. The logged trips can be e-mailed at any point as an Excel-friendly report for you to hold onto till tax time. Best of all, these reports can be filtered to export only work-related trips, trips in a certain vehicle and so on, making it a snap to prepare your company expense report or any other information you need.

Pros: Stable, versatile and affordable
Cons: Doesn’t use GPS to track mileage
app-ly yourself to save cash

While this certainly isn’t a comprehensive list, it should be more than enough to get you started. The app world is exploding in popularity, and there’s sure to be an app that meets your needs for a financial program. Research a few, take some for a spin and decide what works best. The secret to successful budgeting is to stay on top of inputting your financial activity, and the best way to stay current is to have mobile access so you’re always up-to-date.

Photo: hoyasmeg

Whether you work in an office or not, there are plenty of ways to burn the day away at work. Whether it’s checking your e-mail constantly or even dropping in on coworkers to analyze last night’s ball game, you can find plenty of distractions if you’re looking for them. However, what about the distractions you aren’t looking for, the ones that find you? We’re talking about the requests to help out with a project, 10 minutes of your time to discuss a new idea or that meeting that isn’t mandatory, but you really ought to be there for it. All of these things can take over your day without you realizing it. So, if you’re in the middle of something big that’s genuinely important, how do you keep the lesser stuff from distracting you from the bigger issues?

It’s easy. Just say: “No.”

Of course, there’s a little more to it than that, so read on as we cover the reasons “no” is so hard to say, and then set out the reasons you should say it anyway.

Why “no” is so hard to say

Because you want to move your career forward

If you’re moving forward in your career, you’re growing. Often, that means taking on new tasks, learning that new accounting program or even going to a meeting you weren’t invited to before. Often we don’t say no because we like the feeling of forward motion we get from doing new things. It’s pretty easy to convince yourself that you’re improving your visibility within the company by attending that weekly meeting, and on the one hand you’re right. The more aspects of a company we’re involved in, the more we know what’s going on in the workplace around us, and the more we feel like we’re making a difference. So, we make the mistake of thinking every extra thing we pile on our plate is improving us.

Because you want to help out

Secondly, most guys don’t want to let others down. Most of us have a pretty strong desire to be seen as friendly and helpful at work, and we don’t want to leave a coworker stuck with a difficult problem. Even if you couldn’t care less what your coworkers think, you still want to be the guy who gets things done — Rambo, the Terminator. The guy people call on to save the day when the chips are down. That “people are depending on me” feeling goes very deep into what drives us as men — being relied on is important to feeling manly. So, in turn, we want to feel reliable, and that means always jumping in, even when we can’t.

Because you don’t want to do your other work

Finally, and this one might sting a little, it’s possible that you’re taking on these extra commitments to avoid the work you should be doing. Given the option of letting a coworker interrupt you for 10 minutes in the middle of a difficult project or actually working on that difficult project, sometimes we unconsciously choose to avoid the task at hand. We don’t really want to do it, and it’s easier to do something else. Often the things we distract ourselves with are much smaller and simpler than the big, important, complicated projects. Rather than plow a couple of hours into a project that’s going to produce a big result, we take on smaller tasks like e-mails — it’s much easier to check these things off as “done,” and enjoy the small rush of good feelings that come from accomplishing something.

Why you should say “no” at work

You want to make the most of your time

When you rush around from task to task, it makes the day go by, sure. But are you really accomplishing anything? Every day will always have some “fire-fighting” — there will be some things that interrupt your day that you really do need to attend to immediately. However, if you allow yourself to be constantly distracted by whatever jumps up and shouts at you, the last thing that you’ll get to will often be the most important. Big, meaningful projects are rarely urgent, at least until the last minute.

There’s more to discover about the power of “no” at work and how it can further your career and keep you sane.

Encouraging others to respect your time

Secondly, time is valuable. They say time is money, and in a certain sense that’s true. However, time is also valuable on its own — you can only spend your time on one thing or the other, not both. The way you distribute your time and your attention will make a big difference in what you accomplish at the end of the day, week, month, year, and throughout your career. You have the same number of hours in the day as everyone else — just, at the moment, your time and attention are a huge bargain. If you don’t guard your time, nobody else will.

That’s an ugly fact of time management: The more extra work you say “yes” to, the more work you’re going to get. That can be a good thing — you take on extra projects at work and start receiving more responsibilities and more recognition. However, not everything that’s put in front of you is as valuable as everything else. You need to pick and choose what’s worth your time, or people will begin to pile everything on you. If you have employees who report directly to you, try this little experiment: For the next month, every time an employee comes to you with a problem (even those that have nothing to do with you), jump up, rush out and solve it personally. Don’t involve the employee or train them to fix the problem next time, just make everything all better. The standard for what is worth “bothering the boss” about will fall through the floor — you’ll be getting calls to go to the break room and kill a spider in no time.

You want to solidify your position

If you’ve ever analyzed all the different things you do as part of your job, you’ve no doubt noticed something. While every job has many important parts, there are a few key areas that are absolutely critical. These are the parts of your job that make the biggest difference, and that you simply can’t afford to ignore. You’re much better off focusing on the things you do best (and better than anyone else) than spending your time crossing off little things you’re “decent” at. The more things you say no to, the more time you can spend on what really matters. Likewise, the more things you don’t do, the more it becomes clear to yourself and others what your turf is: your strengths, what you bring to the table and just what exactly it is you do around your workplace. If there’s one thing you want, it’s for those around and above you to know your strengths and to have a very clear picture of what you produce.

how to say no

When something new that wants your time comes along, start by looking at it rationally. Is it going to improve your career? Will it provide big results for the company? If you were to take it on, what if anything that’s currently on your schedule would have to get bumped to make room for the new stuff? Finally, what would the consequences of turning it down be?

No means No

By now, it should be clear that saying no isn’t always easy. However, if you think that’s bad, consider being strapped down with a bunch of busywork that isn’t in your wheelhouse because you were to afraid to even try to decline it. Stick up for yourself — it’s better for you, and better for your company too.

Provided by AskMen.