Check Your Financial Info Anytime, Anywhere

That, in itself, is a significant difference from most personal finance software, which allows you to view your data securely, but in solitude. Geezeo.com lets you keep your financial information private but facilitates communication with others in the community to help you make financial decisions. Tools at the site help track your progress as you pay down debt or save for the future, as well as share ideas with others who have similar goals.

Personal finance sites that revolve around "social networking" in general are becoming very popular. For example, www.networthiq.com allows you to post your financial information -- including cash, investments, debt, etc. -- for all to see and comment upon. It requires users to manually update monthly balances. Another social networking site, www.Mint.com, allows bloggers to share stories about their personal finances. And www.Wesabe.com is a site for group networking about personal finance topics. Geezeo.com is the only one that securely and privately aggregates your own data on a daily basis by either downloading or "scraping" balances from all the sites to which you have authorized access.

But the truly breakthrough technology is the fact that you can now gain access to all this information in real time on your cell phone -- any text enabled cell phone. In effect, your mobile phone becomes an extension of the Web site.

It's a technology that is aimed directly at the 18-to-35 age group that is actively using text messaging. But don't let the youthful aspect of this concept fool you. Two-way mobile banking is the wave of the future.

Getting Geezeo Started

The two most important things you need to know about Geezeo.com can be said in one short sentence: Geezeo is free and it is secure.