What's a good personal finance management web app that I can use in Canada?
Now, if you're still intrested, Mint.com works also for Canadian banks. Mint Canada Yodlee will also work. I asked a similar question (and provided answers) here. Thrive, so far, is the best in my opinion. Their tech support is top notch and their UI is far superior to Yodlee's (which provides the backend for Mint). I use MoneyStrands (formerly called Expensr), but mostly just to track expenses and look at reports on my spending habits. It has some really pretty charts, with the ability to drill down into categories and sub-categories, or graph monthly spending for any custom date range. It does a half-decent job of auto-categorizing the imported bank transactions, and you can set up additional rules for common vendors, but I still have to do some manual work after each import. It does a good job of integrating my credit cards, bank accounts, and I can even manually add cash transactions. It has some basic budgeting capabilities, but they're not very useful for someone who needs to carefully budget thier monthly spending. Another one I've heard about is mint.com, but it only supports American banks (last I heard, anyway). Here's a link with comparison of various online and offline PF software: http://personalfinancesoftwarereviews.com/compare-personal-finance-software/ Now, keep in mind I'm biased because I'm an engineer at this company, but FutureAdvisor.com provides advice on your savings and investments.  We currently help users optimize their portfolios for retirement savings, but plan on rolling our more savings goals in the future. CashBase has a web app, an iPhone app and an Android app, all sync'ed up. It doesn't integrate with banks automatically, but you can import bank statements as CSV. Disclosure: Filip is CashBase's founder.
"I don't like buying individual bonds for my own portfolio.  I actually used to buy long-term government strip bonds (Canadas or provincial bonds) but I stopped.  Here are some reasons why: My broker allows me to purchase bonds via their web application.  However, to sell a bond, I had to call in to the fixed-income trading desk.  That was inconvenient.  (But your broker may be different.) Bonds don't typically trade on a formal exchange.  So, there's no cheap & easy way (as far as I know) to get an independent quote for a bond's value – I had to trust what my broker said my bond was worth when assessing my portfolio performance.   I asked my broker once how they arrive at the ""market value"" shown – i.e. whether it was last bid, ask, or actual trade – and I was told they use a third party bond quotation / valuation information provider for the data, and that quotes are an estimate of what the bond would be worth, based on similar bonds.  I quickly learned that wasn't the value I could actually get when selling it: When you're dealing with your broker to buy and sell bonds, you're likely dealing with theirs or a related investment bank which makes a market for specific issues of bonds.  While I wasn't being charged an explicit commission to buy or sell bonds, it was evident the broker makes money off the spread:  That is, the difference between what they would be willing to sell a bond for and what they would be willing to buy that same bond for.  They will buy your bond back from you cheaper than what they could turn around and sell it to somebody else for.  That's why they don't charge an explicit commission... it's built in and hidden! Anyway, when I finally discovered my broker would seldom actually offer me the ""market value"" quoted for my bonds (typically, it would be bought back for a few percent less than it were theoretically worth), I gave up.  I don't think bonds simply are liquid enough, nor the costs transparent enough for retail investors.  (Or maybe it's just me :-) However, I do think bonds remain an important part of a diversified portfolio:  Bonds ought to be represented in a diversified portfolio using low-cost bond index mutual funds or exchange-traded funds.  Since these funds buy & sell bonds in large quantities, they get a better deal on the spreads.  So, while you do pay an explicit management fee for a fund, you are probably saving since you're not getting shafted on the spreads." Instead of saying which one is better, which is too subjective, I think it is more important to understand what these institutions are.  They are kind of different animals. Edward Jones pretty much a full service wealth manager.  They meet with you in person, advise you on what retirement and savings accounts to get, they talk to you to evaluate your risk preferences.  They will talk to you about planning for your kids' college and about your insurance situation. They will probably attend your kids' bar mitzvahs and stuff too.  Of course, this isn't free.  With Edward Jones you will pay a fixed percentage of your managed wealth to them every year.  And they will likely put your money in expensive mutual funds.  And those mutual funds will charge a special 12b-1 fee, which is a kickback to the wealth manager.  Plan on giving 2% or so of your total wealth to the manager per year, plus whatever the mutual funds charge.   I don't have experience with Betterment, but they appear to be a robo advisor.  Robo advisors attempt to do the same kinds of things as wealth managers, but rely on computer algorithms and web pages to give you advice whenever possible.  This makes some sense because most people aren't actually that special in terms of their financial situation.  I don't know their cost structure, but presumably it will be significantly cheaper than Edward Jones.  They will almost certainly put you in cheaper funds (index funds and ETF's).  Think of it as a cost-conscious alternative to Edward Jones. Vanguard is a discount broker and a mutual fund family.  Their funds are among the biggest and cheapest in the world.  Fees on many of these funds will be a fraction of the equivalent funds Edward Jones will put you in.  They will charge you nothing at all to manage your money.  They will give you some assistance and advice if you call them but don't expect any house calls.  They aren't particularly in the business of giving advice.  If you know what you want to invest in, this is the cheapest way to do it by far.  Basically you won't have to pay anything at all except the actual cost of the assets you are investing in. Which is the best?  Depends on your own preferences and ability.  If you do not want to learn about personal finance and don't particularly care about whether you are getting the best return--if you don't mind paying for a personal touch--Edward Jones might be a good choice.  For most people who are comfortable asking this type of question online and interested in learning about finance even a little bit, I'd expect that Betterment or Vanguard will be a better choice.  For people who are willing to learn a bit of finance and manage their own affairs, using Vanguard (or a close competitor, like Fidelity) will ultimately result in the most wealth generated (the least given away to the financial industry). "I'm not sure if the rules in Canada and the US are the same. I'm as amazed as you are by the amounts of debts people have, but I can see how this credit can be extended. Generally, with good credit history and above average pay - it is not unheard of to get about $100K credit limit with a bunch of credit cards. What you do with that after that depends on your own ability to manage your finances and discipline. Good credit history is defined by paying your credit cards on time with at least minimum payment amount (which is way lower than the actual statement amount). Above average pay is $60K+. So you can easily have tons of debt, yet be considered ""low risk"" with good credit history. And that's the most lucrative market for the credit card issuers - people who do not default, but also have debt and pay interest." Saving money for the future is a good thing.  Whether spending those savings on a business venture makes sense, will depend on a few factors, including: (1) How much money you need that business to make [ie: will you be quitting your job and relying on the business for your sole income? Or will this just be a hobby you make some pocket change from?] (2) How much the money the business needs up front [some businesses, like simple web design consulting, might have effectively $0 in cash startup costs, where starting a franchise restaurant might cost you $500k-$1M on day 1] (3) How risky it is [the general stat is that something like 50% of all new businesses fail in their first year, and I think for restaurants that number is often given as 75%+] So sometimes investing in your own business is financially risky, and other times it is not risky. Sometimes it is a good idea, sometimes it is not. Either way, saving for a future business that you may or may not ever invest in, is still saving money. If you never end up investing in a business, you can instead use that money for retirement, or whatever other financial goals you have. So it's not the saving for a new business that is risky, it's the spending. Part of good personal financial management is making financial goals, tracking your progress to those goals, and changing them as needed. In a simpler case, many people want to own their own home - this is a common financial goal, just like early retirement, or starting your own business, or paying for your kids' college education. All those goals are helped by saving money, so your job as someone mindful of personal finances, is to prioritize those goals in accordance to what is important for you. As mentioned by Stannius in the comments below, there is one catch here: if you are saving money for a short term goal (such as starting a business in a year), then you might want to keep it in low-interest savings accounts, instead of investing in the stock market. Doing this would remove the chance that your investments fail right before you need the startup money. Of course, this means that saving for a business that you never end up starting, could earn you less investment income on your savings. This would be the risk of saving for any specific short term goal that you end up changing later on. I'm using iBank on my Mac here and that definitely supports different currencies and is also supposed to be able to track investments (I haven't used it to track investments yet, hence the 'supposed to' caveat). Out Of The Dark OOTD is a budgeting and personal money management web app that does not require you to give out access to your bank accounts or even your personal identity.  It's a great tool for people with no financial experience with features like Cash Put-Aside and the Credit Card Debt Terminator and it has tons of instant guides explaining how to use every feature.  You can check it out at myootd.org. Actually there has been lots of talk around using a TFSA (Tax Free Savings Account) in Canada for just that purpose.  A TFSA allows you: This blog makes some good points about exactly that: The bestest thing about the TFSA is its flexibility. You can take money out of your TFSA at any time for any purpose, without losing the contribution room, which makes this account the number one choice for socking away an emergency fund. So even if you take money out in one year, you can put it back the next, without affecting that year’s $5,000 contribution limit. Like Ganesh, I've used XE Trade - however I still do, fairly often.  I have never had a single problem with them regardless of the method I used to move money -- Draft, Wire, ACH, bill payment through online banking, etc. The type of trade I do most often is online bill payment to ACH -- i.e. I pay through my banking site and they pay through ACH.  There's no fee and it takes 2 business days to go through.  I do mainly CAD to USD conversions and I lose about 1.25 cents on the rate -- for example, if the CAD is worth 95 cents US, converting $100 CAD would get me $92.75 USD.  The banks usually take 2.5% or so, so it's 50% savings. It was free and pretty simple to sign up, all online -- and besides the standard info all they required was for me to upload a scan of a bank statement. As for an API, I have no idea if they have one.