Easy, free, accurate online personal finance tools.

This week, I started researching alternatives to Bank of America's MyPortfolio program -- the main reason that I'm keeping an account with BOA. After doing a little research and with the help of some friends, I found a few websites that provide a comparable service for free. Now, I'll need to think long and hard about whether I want to keep my BOA account or not.

There are few sites that I found that will synchronize your finances from all of your financial institutions and give you a compiled list of transactions that populate a spending profile. This repository of transactions will drive a graphical breakdown of your spending, showing where all of your money is going.

My favorite site so far is Mint.com. They boast that users are able to set up an account in five minutes and instantly be given suggestions on ways to save money (usually in the form of an opportunity for a lower APR credit card or a higher APR bank account). The interface is simple, and the extra features are helpful and relevant.

I particularly like the budgeting feature. After manually entering your monthly spending goals for all expense categories (some initial goals are set to values that represent your last three months of spending), Mint will tell show you how well you're adhering to your budget so far. If you're on track to spend more than your monthly budget (let's say you spent $100 of your monthly $150 gasoline budget in the first week of the month), you will be alerted by a simple change in color of your budget 'thermometer.'

Another tool compared your spending in a given category to the spending of other Mint users in other parts of the country. It will even compare your spending at a specific store to any other part of the country. I'm amused that I spent slightly more at Waffle House last month ($19) than that average American ($17). I would love to see a feature that shows you where people in your area that spend less in a certain category do their shopping. For example, if you spend 25% more than most people in your area on groceries or internet service, wouldn't it be neat to see where everyone else does their shopping or from whom they buy their internet service?

My main criticism of Mint is its inability to show my equity in my real assets. Some of Mint's competitors, like BOA's MyPortfolio, integrate with zillow.com to estimate your home's approximate value. Just because I owe tens of thousands of dollars on my home doesn't mean that I have a negative net worth. Because my house is worth more than I owe, it should improve my net worth. The same story goes for our two cars. I'd like to see an integration with a car valuing website like Kelly Blue Book. I own two cars; one is paid off and one is not. If Mint is going to take my auto loan into account when calculating my net worth, they might as well recognize that my car is worth something.

If you'd like to get a grip on your finances and have a single place to check in on them from time to time, I'd suggest visiting Mint.com. It's free and easy for those with already established online access to their bank, mortgage, auto loan, and credit card accounts.