By Samantha Maziarz Christmann, The Buffalo News, N.Y.

Oct. 26--They're the first words out of every financial planner's mouth: Create a budget and stick to it. That can be much easier said than done.

But if you want the help, there is more out there now than ever before. Web-based budgeting tools have come a long way from the bare bones spreadsheets of old. Visually stunning and full of digital tricks, today's financial software is no more difficult than and just as entertaining as a game of Bejeweled or Mafia Wars. Yet at the end of it all you'll actually have spent your time on something productive. And maybe you'll find a way to amass genuine riches rather than racking up points that are good only in the virtual world.

Best of all, several online budgeting programs are free. We tried a few, and this is what we found:

Mint.com

Mint.com is the darling of free online budgeting software. It has been selected as one of the top budgeting sites by Money magazine, Kiplinger's and PC magazine.

Mint has relationships with thousands of financial institutions, allowing you to link and sync your bank, credit, loan and investment accounts in order to track them all easily and in one place. Mint.com also sorts the information from each and analyzes it in a number of different ways.

For example, Mint gathers all banking transactions and automatically classifies purchases and bill payments under categories and subcategories. The purchase of a $12 print from Kirklands automatically was labeled "home improvement," but misfiled categories are easy to correct (such as a visit to the Royal restaurant, which somehow got tallied under "financial"). The program also uses account information to total your debt (such as student loans and credit card balances), calculates your net worth by compiling the amounts of your assets, and keeps a running total of the cash you have available.

Mint uses nifty pie charts and bar graphs to give a visual picture of where your money goes. You can tag categories to keep a closer eye on certain transactions, click on pie chart categories to get a more detailed breakdown of subcategories and compare your spending habits over time. Clicking on the category "Food and Dining" breaks down into the more specific subcategories of Restaurants, Fast Food, Coffee Shops, Groceries, and Bars and Alcohol. Fun features include comparisons of how your spending contrasts with that of the average consumer in your area.

The site's inviting, user-friendly display makes navigation a breeze. Text message and e-mail alerts can be set to remind you when bills are due or when bank balances are getting low. A budgeting tool helps set spending limits and lets you know how closely you are sticking to the plan.

One caveat: The "Ways to Save" tab should be looked at as a paid advertisement rather than as genuine financial advice. The banks, brokerage firms and credit card companies recommended to help you save money provide revenue to Mint.com, which is what helps keep the site free. For example, my Ways to Save tab offered to save me $4,026 in stock commissions over three years if I opened a brokerage account with Scottrade -- but I didn't have any brokerage account linked to Mint.com, so I can't imagine where it got those figures.

Too, almost immediately after signing up, I got an e-mail alert hawking "free money" to be had with a zero percent interest credit card. There are also pitches to get you to visit FreeCreditReport.com and to purchase your credit score. But for all the free benefits of Mint.com, a few commercial interruptions are a small price to pay--as long as you know to recognize them as such.

Also, even though Mint claims it can link to more than 7,500 financial institutions, I had trouble accessing a few accounts. I have a feeling this has something to do with account verification precautions taken by those sites and that Mint hasn't yet gotten around them.

Quicken Online

This is a free, online version of the paid Intuit software ($30) that has been used mainly to track investment portfolios and personal spending. This is one of the big dogs in personal finance management software, having been around for 25 years.

The free online version was designed for younger users, or people who are trying to get a handle on their finances for the first time and need help simplifying things in one place. It may not offer the detail or advanced features regular users of the paid Quicken software might expect, but it should be more than sufficient for those just starting out.

Like Mint, Quicken Online lets you sync outside accounts with the software, makes all of your accounts available in one place. And it provides analysis of where your money is going -- complete with interactive charts and graphs.

Quicken Online's display is less appealing, which can make a big difference when you're dealing with something as potentially dry and difficult as budgeting. It also bears a window showing you how much money you have left until your next paycheck. This may be helpful for some, but for me it seems to inject an element of stress and encourage paycheck- to-paycheck living instead of long-term planning. Try it at www.quicken.intuit.com/personalfinance-software/free-online-moneymanagement.jsp . BudgetToolkit.com

This Web site allows you to synchronize your banking and credit account information, so you don't have to add it manually. But unlike Mint.com and Quicken Online, BudgetToolkit.com doesn't use your bank account numbers and passwords to do so, which is a bonus for those turned off by potential security risks.

BudgetToolkit.com allows you to budget and track spending and lets you look for spending trends by putting your transactions into visual charts and graphs. The Web site links to helpful articles for additional context. It also offers several calculators, such as a loan calculator that predicts monthly payment amounts and the amount of interest to be paid over the life of a loan.

Some of the automatic features at Mint.com are available manually at BudgetToolkit. They include personalized expense reports for time frames and spending categories of your choosing, as well as color-coded alerts that let you know when you're close to exceeding a given budget category.

BudgetToolkit.com could be tricky for financial rookies who might need a little additional hand-holding through the budgeting process. But it has been given high marks by people who have a handle on their own finances and are looking to transition from paper to digital record keeping.

Wesabe.com

Perhaps the most helpful of the online budgeting programs, Wesabe. com is a great place for people who don't know where to start or who are looking for assistance navigating the tricky world of personal finance.

Wesabe.com is marketed toward people who may be having trouble financially, and pledges to help them iron out their money problems for a better quality of life. Thanks to a social networking component, Wesabe. com also allows users to call on the online community's "collective intelligence" for help. Here, too, you'll have to give up user names and passwords to sync your financial accounts. You can see transactions at a glance, tag spending categories and set spending goals.

Wesabe. com's strength comes from its ties to other users, blogs and groups. And what's really neat about the site is that it uses your shopping data and compares the merchants you frequently shop with against others available. It offers shopping tips, advice from users and cost comparisons.

schristmann@buffnews.com

-----

To see more of The Buffalo News, N.Y., or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.buffalonews.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, The Buffalo News, N.Y.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.