A couple years ago I was listening to the radio morning show and someone called in with a tip about this website that helps you track how you're eating and working out. He said it had already helped him lose some weight. I made a note of it and joined the website later that day. I've wavered in and out of my commitment to the website over the years but it's usefulness has never faded. Within the last year or so, The Daily Plate teamed up with Lance Armstrong's organization Livestrong and the site now finds its home at livestrong.com. They actually just released a beta update and it's awesome! There is a pretty good database of foods and physical activities which allows you to track your caloric intake every day. You can also track your weight, a limited amount of body measurements, and you can set weight loss/gain goals. The beauty of it is pretty much the entire site is free to join (you can become a gold member with a few extra perks; $45/year) and it's web based which means you can track your calories at home, at work, or on your iPhone (there's an app for that).
After a couple years of not so successfully using excel spreadsheets to track my spending, I'd been tirelessly searching for a personal finance tool that would allow me to track my spending and create a budget. Pretty much any downloadable software you can get for free is worthless and it's hard to know if they're any good without paying 30 bucks or so for them. And call me crazy, but I don't want to pay for a tool to help me save money! One day it dawned on me. A downloadable software program means I can only update it when I'm on my personal computer. What if I could find a free web based site that was secure and had all the features I required? What if tracking my personal finance was as easy as the Daily Plate made tracking my eating? So a new search had begun. I googled like mad. Almost everything costs money out there. There were many websites that came close but either were no longer accepting members or didn't support my bank; Kern Schools (mint.com; I'd still recommend this site for those of you with Bank of America or other big banks). Then I stumbled upon Wesabe. Although not seamless, there is a way for it to securely download my account information from Kern Schools through Firefox. Tags make it easy to show where my money is coming from and going to. One of my favorite features is that I can add a cash account to manually keep track of. This is a huge help to me as I withdraw cash each month as a sort of "allowance." Now I can keep track of it too. For the first time in my life I really feel like I know where my money is going. With that knowledge I can make much more educated saving and spending choices. AND it's got an iPhone app!
That's my commercial. It's not the most fun thing in the world to keep on top of your eating or your personal finance but with easy, web-based, and intuitive tools such as these, you just might actually do it!
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