You might remember my previous Modern Money Managers post on Microsoft Money. I've since moved on. MS Money is a great tool for those who have more complicated finances than I do. After poking around and reading Jens' and Cody's reviews, I decided to strike out on my own and try moneyStrands at money.strands.com.
For those who remember Expensr, it was acquired by Strands early in 2009. The result of this merging (moneyStrands) was launched in March 2009. I had an Expensr account back in the day (that I didn't really use), but the online setup wizard pulled my info over to the moneyStrands site without any problems.
Like all the other managers we've profiled, moneyStrands is free. That's always a plus. It was also easy to add all my financial information to the interface. It took me about five minutes to add info for three institutions and five accounts.
moneyStrands automatically categorizes all my transactions (which I don't have to correct very often) and analyzes them, so I can see exactly where my money is going and how close I am to meeting my budget.
However, moneyStrands isn't perfect. The biggest drawback I could find was in connecting to some financial institutions or certain accounts. For example, at my primary financial institution, it finds my checking and savings accounts, but not my auto loan. That and my student loans, I have to add manually. The less time I have to spend on my budgeting the better, so adding this chore to the pile is something I'd rather avoid.
Overall, moneyStrands is worth checking out if you're in the market for a budgeting tool.
- Jennie
Thanks for checking us out Jennie. With loans, you do have to add them separately, even if its the same login and pw for the account. We may not support loans from your bank, but you can do a search and look under the "loan" tab to double check (if you haven't already done that).
Thanks again and keep an eye out for some new features we're launching next week!
Lucia @ moneyStrands
Hi Lucia. Thanks for the tip. I've also been playing around with adding my info manually by downloading reports from my financial institution and uploading them to moneyStrands. So far that seems to be working well.
moneyStrands announced today that it reached 100,000 registered users since its launch in March. Apparently it's working for some people.
- Jennie
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