Budgeting isn’t easy. Knowing that you have $3,000 in a savings account for “just in case money” is tempting when you’re strapped for cash and want a pizza. It’s even worse when you’re trying to save for college money, retirement, or your child’s RESP.

For some people budgeting has been made simpler with fancy spreadsheets or a calculator with lots of scrap paper. For others (this is talking about myself), budgeting is made far simpler with online applications that do all/most of the work for you.

Here, then, are some pretty nifty alternatives to pen and paper that will help you track your money:

Editor’s note: Below each are some features we thought are pretty important. They all including budgeting, but have

Yodlee Moneycenter (Free)

Yodlee MoneyCenter™ — the most comprehensive online banking solution on the market — offers an unparalleled user experience helping consumers gain convenience, insight, and control.

• Track your spending
• View all your finances
• Pay your bills

Pear Budget (30-day free trial, $3/month)

PearBudget is a really simple budgeting and expense tracking service.

Mint (Free)

Mint is fresh, intelligent online money management. Not only is Mint free, it saves you money. While existing personal finance software packages require hours to set up, a passion for accounting (is that possible?) and hours of weekly maintenance, Mint is virtually effortless.

• Track your spending
• View all your finances

Wesabe (Free)

The easy and free way to manage your money. We know how hard it can be to deal with money stress. Wesabe gives you the tools and the insights to take control of your finances. You can see all your bank and credit card balances in one place and learn ways to get ahead, in a few easy steps.

• Track your spending
• View all your finances
• Community backing

Budget Tracker (Free)

We provide a way to track your budget easily from any internet connection or any cellular phone, so that you can enter in your transactions as they happen. Our first goal was to provide a complete, easy, and customizable budgeting solution. After several e-mails of suggestions to be added to the site, BudgetTracker has grown into much more than just a Budgeting Tool. You can save your Bills, Income, Transactions, Budget, and tie all these together in a Calendar that can either send reminders to your email address or your cellular phone. The best part of our site is that all of these ideas came from you!

• Track your spending
• View all your finances
• Pay your bills

BudgetPulse (Free)

BudgetPulse personal finance software is the perfect solution for managing your finances. You can organize your cash flow, expenses and bank accounts in one place. And easy to understand charts and graphs enable you to visualize how you’re spending your money month-to-month. This enables you to track your progress, discover where you can make savings and improve how you manage your money.

BudgetPulse personal finance software is the perfect solution for managing your finances. You can organize your cash flow, expenses and bank accounts in one place. And easy to understand charts and graphs enable you to visualize how you’re spending your money month-to-month. This enables you to track your progress, discover where you can make savings and improve how you manage your money.

Buxfer (Free)

“Finance-tracking webapp Buxfer manages expenses and group finances all in a good-looking, modern interface. Two nice bits at Buxfer I liked immediately: the ability to sign in using an existing Google, Yahoo or Facebook account (it doesn’t force you to create yet another login!) and the ability to SMS transactions to your account. Buxfer is definitely worth a look for folks looking to track their money more closely.” – Lifehacker

• Track your spending
• View all your finances
• Pay your bills

moneyStrands (Free)

Don’t waste your precious time monitoring multiple bank sites and maintaining painful spreadsheets anymore. We know you have better things to do with your time. moneyStrands automatically pulls together data from your checking, savings, credit card and loan accounts to provide an accurate, up-to-date picture of your financial life broken down by meaningful automatically identified categories along with flexible user defined transaction types. Best of all, moneyStrands is 100% FREE.

• Track your spending
• View all your finances
• Pay your bills

Rudder (Free)

Whether you’re looking to cut spending, save for a goal, or analyze trends – Rudder’s forward focused approach will help you stay on top of your finances, effortlessly.

• Track your spending
• View all your finances

Thrive (Free)

Thrive brings together all your financial information and advice into one easy view that help you understand not ust what you have, but what you have to do.

• Track your spending
• View all your finances

Xero Personal (Free)

Get your complete financial position in an instant. Xero lets you organise all your bank accounts in one place and automatically tracks your spending for you.

• Track your spending
• View all your finances

Green Sherpa (Free)

GreenSherpa differs from other personal finance software in that it allows people to look forward and plan for future expenses and possible incomes.

• Track your spending
• View all your finances

What Do You Use?

What do you use? Did we miss any? Stay tuned for another article where we’ll be analyzing sites that will help you save money on services you’re already paying for!