The recession has been tough on many, but that doesn’t mean you have to just take it. You can fight back by using a variety of tools and resources available to you, many of them online. Here we’ll take a look at 50 tools on the web that can help you show the recession who’s boss.
Investing
Stocks are down and if you’ve got the funds, it’s a great time to get into the game. Make the most of it with these tools.
- Tip’d Social Tickers: Tip’d Social Tickers are an incredible tool for finding out about the buzz around stocks on the social web.
- GStock: Use GStock’s virtual supercomputer to get alerts with stock market analysis.
- BullPoo: Check out this community where you can organize your stock trade information and interact with others in the investment community.
- Zecco: Through Zecco, you’ll get free online investment trading as well as a knowledgeable financial community.
- CAPS: CAPS from Motley Fool is great for participating in an investment community as well as tracking and predicting stock outcomes.
- Wikinancial: In the Wikinancial community, you can share watchlists, charts, and more.
Better manage the money you have by using these personal finance and money management tools.
- Zopa: Get and give short term loans for consumer debt and more on Zopa if you’re in the UK.
- How Much Am I Spending?: Take a hard look at your finances and figure out where you can cut with this tool.
- Mint: Through Mint, you can not only manage your personal finances, but also find better financial products that can save you money.
- DimeWise: Use DimeWise to track and manage multiple accounts such as your savings and checking all at once.
- NetworthIQ: NetworthIQ will allow you to monitor your net worth, debts, assets, and more.
- Foonance: Foonance is a flexible tool for users to manage personal finance, net worth, and more.
- Wesabe: Use Wesabe for web-based personal finances with a helpful and encouraging financial community.
- Thrive: Thrive’s online financial planning platform offers free, personalized advice and recommendations for your finances.
If you’re struggling and interested in downsizing, or taking advantage of good market timing to invest in real estate, make use of these web apps.
- Trulia: With Trulia, you’ll get a really useful real estate search that shows not only properties but comparables, interactive price trend maps, and more.
- Homethinking: Using this application, you can find agents and properties that are right for you.
- Rentometer: Use Rentometer to find out if you’re being charged fair market value for rent, and find out if you can save by moving elsewhere.
- Zillow: Zillow provides buyers with value estimates for potential homes, and sellers with a comparable estimate for their home.
- iiProperty: iiProperty will make it easy for you to manage all of the real estate in your investment property.
These calculators will help you make smart recession money decisions.
- Rent or Buy?: With this calculator, you can figure out if now is the right time to take advantage of low interest rates and a down market.
- Grace Period Calculator: The Grace Period Calculator will show you how to save money by making your payments before your grace period is up.
- One Income Calculator: Use this calculator to find out if you can make things work, even with a layoff.
- Miles per Dollar Calculator: Make use of this calculator to find out exactly how much each mile costs you.
- Lunch Saver: Find out how much money you can save by brown bagging your lunch every day with this calculator.
Carefully track where your money goes by using these excellent web apps for expenses.
- Spending Diary: Track your expenses and get a good look at your money flow by using SpendingDiary.
- Xpenser: Using Xpenser, you can track your spending just about any way you like-SMS, IM, voice, or email.
- iOWEYOU: Use this expense sharing calculator to determine who owes what for different expenses.
- billster: The billster service will help you figure out just where all of your money goes.
Sniff out the best deals online and off by using these web tools.
- BeatThat: Use BeatThat to find the absolute lowest price for products online.
- BargainChecker: With this tool, you’ll be able to find bargains on mistyped eBay items.
- RetailMeNot: Land awesome deals with coupon codes you can find on RetailMeNot.
- Dealighted: Use Dealighted to monitor deals on the best money saving forums.
- WhiteFence: WhiteFence will make it easy for you to find the best deal on utilities providers.
- AbsurdlyCool Freebie Finder: Get your hands on some free stuff with the help of this tool.
- PriceGrabber: Use PriceGrabber’s comparison shopping power to find the best price, reviews, and more for what you’re looking for.
- UltimatePricecheckerToolbar: This toolbar allows you to check the price of an item on four well-known sites at once.
These tools will help you save more of your hard earned money.
- Tech Support Guy: Don’t spend your hard earned cash on tech support-get it for free online.
- My Open Bar: Check out My Open Bar to find free drinks in selected cities.
- SuperCook: Use SuperCook to build recipes using ingredients you already have.
- PriceHub: Check out PriceGub to find out the going rate for new and used cars.
- Beat My Price: Enter the name of the product you’re trying to get a deal on, and see where other people found it for less.
- NeedyMeds: Whether you’ve lost your insurance or just want to find cheaper health care, you can locate free and low cost clinics through NeedyMeds.
Whether you’re laid off, upgrading your career, or growing your business, make use of these tools.
- JibberJobber: JibberJobber is an excellent relationship manager and job search tool for those who are looking for a job.
- PayScale: Use PayScale to find out whether or not you’re being paid fairly for the work you do.
- Worksolver: Worksolver will help you keep your networking and job hunting information organized and easy to track.
- VirtualJobCoach: Use the VirtualJobCoach as a job search assistant with a contact database, job listings, and to do list.
- Side Job Track: If you’ve taken on a side job to make ends meet, get your finances organized with Side Job Track.
- Bplans: Laid off and decided to start your own business? Make use of Bplans to get a free business plan.
- Free CRM: These days, good customer relationships are worth their weight in gold. Make sure you’re cultivating good relationships with this free CRM tool.
- Clip Clip Save: With Clip Clip Save, you can create and share nice looking, printable small business coupons.