The service mentioned on this edition of the Two-Minute Money Toolkit was Simplee.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Who else would benefit from this post?  Why not forward a link to my site? And if you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

Your Christmas Gift This Year: Free Job Advice (Main Street).  For many people, all they want for Christmas is a new job.  If that’s you, take advantage of this free help.

How to Get Your Dream Job in a Bad Economy (Time).  Any job might sound good to you if you’ve been out of work for some time, but this author suggests that you aim high.

Relationships, Realistic Expectations Temper Holiday Stress (USA TODAY).  Good advice for making sure you enjoy the holidays and not get all stressed out.  Along the same lines, read the results of this survey I conducted right after a past Christmas (click on Holiday Regrets) in which people were asked what they wish they had done more and less of during the holidays.  The answers will help you make the most of this year’s Christmas.

What Not to Buy Before Christmas (CNNMoney).  Among the many other things that go on deep discount after Christmas are gift baskets sold by many department stores.  They can make for nice New Year’s gifts.

Online Bargain Hunting: 6 Secrets to Saving Big (US News).  Here’s a 7^th secret: Amazon is offering users of its Price Check app an added discount on December 10.  While shopping in a retail store, just use the app to see if Amazon has a better price, and if you end up buying from Amazon, the company will add another discount.

And from the blogosphere…

5 Reasons to Put Your Retirement Plans Ahead of Your Children’s College (ChristianPF).  As a parent, I know how easy it is to get these priorities turned around.  This article clarifies why it’s important to put them in the right order.

5 Ways to Celebrate the Birth of Jesus (Bible Money Matters).  I love these ideas.  Your kids will benefit, and so will you.

5 Powerful Negotiation Strategies That Work Every Time (Wealth Pilgrim).  I would add a sixth strategy to this list: just ask.  It’s amazing what you can get if you just ask.

Daily Deal Sites Secondary Market (Bargaineering).  The popularity of daily deal sites has spawned several offshoots.  Recently I reported on daily deal site aggregators – services that sort through the deals from multiple deal sites and then send you one e-mail with all of the deals near you.  Now, it turns out, there’s an organized way to sell deals you bought that you’re not able to use, or to buy the deals other people aren’t able to use at an even greater discount.

Give a Gift That’ll Pay Lasting Dividends (Me!).  Yes, this is a link to a promotion I’m running for about another week.  If you have an engaged or newly married couple (a couple that’s been married for about 5 years or less – okay, maybe 10) on your gift list, I truly believe this book will be a blessing to them.  I wrote it because money messes with far too many people’s marriages and that bothers me.  A lot.  This book helps couples get the money thing right.

Got a question or a response to any of the above?  Be sure to leave a comment.

Who else would benefit from this post?  Why not forward a link to my site? And if you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

The two sites mentioned on this edition of the Two-Minute Money Toolkit were Yipit and The Dealmap.

What’s been your experience with daily deal sites?

Who else would benefit from this post?  Why not forward a link to my site? And if you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

How Die-Hard Couponers Do It (via CNNMoney).  Feel like you’re missing out because you’ve read about the coupon pros who by $1,000 of groceries for $10?  Here are five tips most mere mortals can follow to save some dough at the grocery store.

Best Price Comparison Tools (via Mainstreet.com).  I use PriceGrabber fairly often to find the best prices, but this article mentions several other good price comparison web sites and smartphone apps, including one that’ll help you figure out what secondhand goods are worth and another that’ll help you calculate the best price per ounce or per count for items at the grocery store.

Should Your Kids Have Life Insurance? (via Bankrate.com).  Some good reasons why to say no to this idea, along with some good alternatives.

5 Ways to Save Big on College Textbooks (via Mainstreet.com).  If you’re a college student of if you know one, this article will point you to five places to get textbooks for a lot less that the college bookstore.

How to Get the Best Price When Selling Your Gold (via USA TODAY).  With the price of gold going through the roof, you may be tempted to part with some of your gold jewelry.  Here’s some good advice on how and where to sell it.

And here are five especially good posts from personal finance bloggers.

How We Keep Our Grocery Budget Under $250 Per Month (via Faith and Finance).  Tim writes about the practical steps he and his wife use to keep their food spending under control.

2011 Sales Tax Holidays for Back-to-School Shopping (via FiveCentNickel).  If you’re buying something you need and it’s on sale, why not shop during a tax-free time as well?

Make a Starbucks Frappuccino for $.32 (via Sqawkfox).  Many are the bloggers who bemoan Starbucks.  I like it when one teaches you how to enjoy pricey coffee on the cheap.

My Car is Dying, What To Do? (via Financial Samurai).  Sam raises some good questions about when to finally part with an old vehicle, and his readers weigh in.

5 Common Resume Mistakes You Should Avoid (via Couple Money).  If you’re in the hunt for a new job, here are some good points to keep in mind.

Know someone else who would benefit from this article?  Please forward a link to my site.  And if you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

Since we use Mint.com and are very satisfied with the service, I tested this new game expecting to be pleased with what I saw.  However, I was very disappointed.  Here’s why.

Exercises That Don’t Match the Goals

Players can choose among several spending goals, such as the purchase of a new wardrobe, a new computer, or tickets to an amusement park.  You roll electronic dice, move a game piece toward the objective, and answer questions along the way to earn money.  But the questions relate to other purchases that seem disjointed from the goal you’re pursuing.

For example, here’s one of the questions: “I really want a cell phone with a touch screen, but my parents said they will only pay for half.  I can:

A)   Start saving part of my allowance every week

B)   See if I can do some extra chores around the house for money

C)   Put it on my birthday wish list

D)   Cut back on what I spend on other things and save that money

Option B is the preferred answer.  While an argument certainly could be made for that answer, I thought the main goal was to buy a new wardrobe.  Isn’t this an opportunity to teach kids about making trade-offs?  If you really want some new clothes, wouldn’t it be better to hold off on the cell phone until after you accomplish the clothing goal?

No Explanations About the Best Answer

If you get an answer wrong, you’re not told what the game designers felt was the best answer.  Since there are often several answers that seem legitimate, it would be helpful to see an explanation as to why one answer is preferred over another.

There was also some inconsistency in the lessons being taught.  For example, in some cases, the best answer is one that involves not spending money, such as saying no to a designer sweatshirt when you already have one just like it or making a gift instead of buying one.  But there was one question about buying an expensive series of books and the option of checking them out of the library was not deemed to be the best answer.

Goofy Games Within the Games

Several times as you pursue a goal, you have to stop to play other games such as the Bank Deposit game where you drag coins onto a slingshot, aim, and fire toward a savings bag.  What is that teaching?

With the Avoid Spending Game, you’re told, “You’ll encounter many temptations along the path to your financial goal.  See how long you can keep you coins away from all the items you could spend them on.”  You then click and drag a coin around the screen trying to dodge objects you’re supposedly tempted to buy as they fly at you.

With, It’s Raining Cash, you’re reminded that, “Saving money isn’t always easy.  Watch out for items that could keep you from reaching your goal.”  You then drag a savings bag from left to right, trying to catch money as it rains down on you.

How these games teach anything related to wise money management, I have no idea.

If they were designed to break up the flow of questions and make the whole experience more enjoyable, I doubt that the pong-like quality of the games will do much for a target group that is accustomed to playing Wii and Xbox games.

Some Other Issues

Another problem I noticed is that some of the questions seem gender-specific and yet the game is designed to be gender neutral.  For example, one question has to do with funding a trip to a spa to get a manicure and facial.  I’m going to go way out on a limb and guess that there aren’t many middle school boys that are in the market for such things.

And lastly, one question asked about going to see the latest vampire movie.  Some kids come from homes in which their parents won’t let them see such movies, so why couldn’t they just say the latest teen movie?

I’m generally a fan of Mint and I believe more needs to be done to help kids learn about money, so it pains me to have to write a thumbs-down review of Quest for Money.  I really wanted to like it.  However, this game is not up to Mint’s standards, nor do I believe it’s going to do much to help improve kids’ financial literacy.

What do you think?  If you have a middle school student in your house, please ask them to play the game and let me know their feedback.

If you haven’t done so already, please sign up for a free subscription to this blog.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

In this sixth installment of our look at the personal finance implications of “Good to Great,” the focus is on technology.  Author Jim Collins found that for each of the remarkably successful companies he profiled, technology was never the creator of their momentum; it was an accelerator.  By the same token, technology by itself won’t give you a great financial life (unless you invent the next Internet), but it can certainly be a big help.

Choose the Right Technology for Your Financial Needs

An important key, Collins found, is to avoid technology fads and bandwagons, focusing instead on the application of carefully selected technologies.

There’s plenty of whiz-bang tech stuff out there today, and you could spend plenty of time keeping up with it all.  Or, you could make sure you’re using the tools that have already proven themselves to be helpful.

For example, one of the most important ways to get and maintain a high credit score is to pay your bills on time.  Some ways technology can help include signing up for e-mail alerts that remind you whenever one of your bills is due or setting up automatic bill payments.

Automatic deposits work wonders for those who have a tough time mustering the discipline to put money into their retirement plans or savings accounts.

And, if you want a simple way to track the performance of your investments across multiple investment accounts, technology like Wikinvest can provide a good free solution.

How Technology Can Really Accelerate Your Financial Success

Collins says the companies that made the leap from good to great got the most out of technology by using it to support their “Hedgehog Concept.”

As you may recall, that’s the name Collins gave to one of his primary insights about outstanding companies.  They all focused on one thing that they could become the best in the world at and oriented all of their efforts around that single organizing idea.

As we’ve discussed before, a personal finance application of “The Hedgehog Concept” is to identify one thing – just one – that would make the greatest positive difference in your finances this year, and then focus on accomplishing that goal.

How Technology Can Help You Stay On Top Of Your Finances

Is this the year you’re finally going to figure out where your money actually goes each month?  There are several free online tools available that will track most of your financial transactions automatically.  We use Mint.com.

Sure, it takes a little time to get it set up.  You have to be willing to enter your bank and credit card information, and then you need to set up a budget, determining how much you plan to give, save, invest, and spend each month (you may find my recommended spending guidelines helpful). But once you put in that time, Mint makes it incredibly easy to see how you’re doing financially.

Most mornings before I begin my work, I log in, check to make sure recent transactions have been categorized correctly, and manually enter any cash transactions.  Then I can instantly see how our actual use of money compares with our plan at that point in the month.  I love having that information so readily accessible.

How Technology Can Help You Get Out of Debt

If getting out of debt is the most important goal you’re pursuing this year, use the debt calculator on my site to map out a plan for its elimination.  You’ll be able to see how much faster you’ll be out of debt if you pay various extra amounts toward your debts, which can be a great motivator to find the money.  Or, if you’re using Mint, they’ve created a new debt tool as well.

What technology do you find most helpful for managing your personal finances?  In particular, I’d love to know what personal finance apps you’re using on your smartphone.  What other technology are you thinking about adding?  Please leave a comment below.

If someone forwarded this article to you, please sign up for your own subscription.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

Other articles in this series on the personal finance applications from “Good to Great” include:

Level 5 Leadership

First Who… Then What

Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)

The Hedgehog Concept

A Culture of Discipline

In this third installment of my look at how the lessons from the business classic “Good to Great” apply to our personal finances, the focus is on optimistically moving forward while at the same time facing the facts.

Personal Finance Lessons From Great Businesses

“Good to Great” is a fascinating look at why some companies break from their pack of competitors and achieve remarkable, sustained success.  I found the lessons directly applicable to personal money management success and wrote previously about author Jim Collins’ first two findings: Good-to-Great companies have Level Five Leaders at the helm, and they take a First Who…Then What approach to their businesses.

Collins’ third insight is that all Good-to-Great companies “Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith).”  Both are essential.  Know the absolute truth of your situation, and have confidence about the better future you are moving toward.

Optimistic About the Future, Grounded in Reality

Most business leaders, like most family leaders, want to succeed.  What’s far less common is the other part of the equation – a commitment to understand the absolute truth of today’s situation.

The way Collins put it was that the companies that made the leap from Good to Great “continually refined the path to greatness with the brutal facts of reality.”

Collins brought this lesson to life through the story of Jim Stockdale, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer held captive during the Vietnam War.  Stockdale was tortured over 20 times during his eight-year imprisonment, somehow surviving that ordeal without any prisoner rights and no sense as to if or when he would ever be released.

When asked which of his fellow prisoners didn’t survive that long ordeal, Stockdale surprised Collins with this quick response: “Oh, that’s easy,” he said.  “The optimists.”

He explained that it was the people who conjured up the false hope that they would get out of prison by this or that date who didn’t make it.  Their blind optimism about a future that had no basis in reality only set them up for repeated disappointments.  Eventually, those disappointments became too much to bear.

“This is a very important lesson,” Stockdale said.  “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Facing Your Financial Facts

Assuming you have a compelling vision of your financial future, here are some of the facts (possibly brutal, possibly not) that you need in order to succeed.

Where Is Your Money Going? Use an electronic budget tool like Mint.com, Yodlee, or moneyStrands.  Once you have it set up, it just takes a minute or so to see how your actual spending compares with your planned spending.  This information is essential if you are to live within your means and find the money to save, invest, and give away.

How Much Debt Do You Have? Enter the details of your debts into the Accelerated Debt Payoff Calculator on my site.  This will tell you how long it will take to get out of debt, assuming you go no further into debt, and that you “fix” your payments – that is, pay every month the amount that you’re paying this month instead of the slightly lower amount your credit card companies will require each month as you pay down your debt.  You can then run some what-if scenarios to see how much faster you’ll be out of debt if you add various amounts to your debt payments, which may motivate you to find the extra money.

How Much Are Your Investments Earning? Even if you have multiple investment accounts, you can see how your total investment portfolio is performing with tools such as Wikinvest, Google Finance, or Yahoo Finance.  This information will help you see whether you’re on track toward the accomplishment of long-term goals like retirement or college funding, and whether any adjustments are needed.

What’s Your Net Worth? Use the simple form on my site to total up your net worth at the end of each year.  This will help you see the general direction of your finances over time, while identifying which parts of your financial life are propelling you forward or holding you back.

Hopefully you have some financial goals that motivate you, but how well do you know the truth about your current financial situation? Leave a comment below.

If you enjoyed this article, please sign up for a subscription to my blog.  Two or three times a week you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

Here’s the issue in the person’s own words:

Yes, we have put together a budget, but making it work for us is a different story. Do you have an easy-to-use system for spending money each month?

Our problem is this:

My wife and I collect receipts for all purchases we make.

It is really tough to log in the receipts every day in order to see how much is left in each category, so the receipts usually get logged every two weeks or so.

I want to make a purchase and I have to ask my wife how much we have in a particular category and her response is, “I can tell you once I turn on my computer and/or log in all receipts.”

Everything is on her computer and is not easily accessible, making the process too slow.

So, we have fallen into a rut where she is always saying to me, “Don’t spend this or that.” I respond by asking, “How much do we have?” which is answered by, “I have to log receipts so I can tell you.”

Bottom line: I spend with a cloud hanging over my head, not sure if we do or do not have the money.

Is there an easy-to-use process or tool for tracking expenses and spending money? Do you encourage an envelope system or what?

Here’s how I responded.

A Manual Solution

One way to solve these problems, as you mentioned, is to use the envelope system.

The first step in the use of any budget system is to figure out how much you can spend in each category.  It sounds like you may have done this already, but just to make sure, here’s how to do so.

Start with Gross income.  From there, I recommend deciding what percentage of that gross income you’re going to give to non-profits that you care about, such as your church, each month.  Next, figure out what percentage of your gross income you’re going to save or invest each month.  Then allocate what remains across the various spending categories.

I have posted my Recommended Spending Guidelines for various size households across various incomes.  They’re not cast in stone, but they may serve as a helpful guide.

Some spending categories will probably be handled electronically, like your mortgage, utilities, and other bills that you may pay online through your bank or credit union, like various insurance bills.

The envelope system is best for discretionary spending categories like clothing, groceries, entertainment, etc.  At the start of each month put the amount you plan to spend on groceries, for example, in an envelope marked “groceries.” When you go to the grocery store, bring that envelope with you and spend out of it, putting any change back in that envelope.  I also recommend that you keep a record of such expenses on the outside of the envelope.  Using this system helps you always know how much is left to spend in that category during the course of the month.

Some people think the envelope system is old fashioned, but it’s actually still one of the most effective systems for staying within your budget and also knowing at any point during the month how much you have left to spend.

An Electronic Solution

The second option is to use an online budget tool like Mint.com.  We used to use Quicken, but I kept bumping into the problem you mentioned about all of the information being on just one computer.  With Mint.com, all of the info is online, so it’s accessible from any computer any time.

The scary part for some people is that you have to enter your passwords for your bank accounts and credit cards.  In exchange, the service automatically downloads all of your financial transactions except cash.  With cash transactions, you manually enter those.

The folks at Mint realize that security is people’s number one concern, so they go to the nth degree with security.  We use Mint and I trust its safety.  But not everyone is comfortable entering his or her passwords, which I understand.  So, it’s not for everyone.

There’s a little bit of a learning curve with Mint.com, but we find it to be the most time-efficient way to manage our budget.

There are other electronic tools as well.  I’ve heard good things about moneyStrands (a free service like Mint), Mvelopes (a fee-based service that operates like an electronic envelope system), and others.

What other advice would you offer this person?

@TweetCheap is a Twitter deal aggregator, searching Twitter to find and tell you about the best coupon codes and other deals it finds.

@HeyItsFree finds, you guessed it, stuff that’s free – from free meals to free music downloads.

@FreeStuffRocks is another good source of freebie info.

@DealNews specializes in technology – from computer gear, gadgets, and more.

@AmazonDeals highlights the many deals available from Amazon.

Remember, though, a deal isn’t really a deal unless it’s a discount on something you were going to buy anyway.  And of course, while we’re talking about Twitter, don’t forget to follow @MattAboutMoney!

Who do you follow on Twitter to keep up with the best deals?

Whereas traditional financial planners may charge upwards of $150 per hour and $3,500 for a comprehensive plan, according to the article, Veritat charges an upfront fee of $250 plus $40 per month.  People’s Financial Advisor charges $99 for a plan and $99 for each telephone consultation.

While I find the online financial planning idea appealing, there are a couple of questions I would raise before becoming a client.  First, I’d want to know a lot about the actual advisor I would work with: how many years has he or she been in the business, what credentials do they hold, and can they provide references? Also, I would want to know more about the company’s asset allocation software.  Is it as sophisticated as that used by more expensive financial planners or is it more along the lines of what you can get for free online?

What about you?  Does the idea of working with an online financial planning company appeal to you?  Why or why not?