Transfer Money for Free (Dwolla)

About Dwolla

Dwolla is similar to PayPal in that you can transfer money from one individual to another. The major difference between the two is that Dwolla is free for transfers under $10 and only a quarter for transfers over $10. In addition to that by inviting friends to Dwolla you can save $10 in transactions fees which is basically getting 40 transactions for free!

Is Dwolla Secure?

Dwolla is about as secure as any other site you trust your credit card with these days. The company is from Iowa and the Iowa government allows its citizens to pay their cigarette stamp taxes with Dwolla. My logically train of thought is that if the Iowa government is that supportive then it can't be too bad. They've shown in the past to take preventative measures including starting a service called Grid so that users can avoid entering their credit card information.

Summary

If you're looking for a cheap way to pay people money and receive payments then Dwolla is currently the way to go! The only limitation is that it is only available in the USA.

Minty Fresh (Mint)

Managing your money is one of the keys to financial success. Everyone should know how much they spent last month on groceries. Think about how much you spent. If you can't come up with the number in less than a minute then you should probably create a Mint account. Mint aggregates all of your financial information (bank accounts, credit cards, loans, etc.) into one place and lets you categorize all of your income and spending. This shows you exactly where all of your money is going. I'm not exactly happy about how much I spend but at least now I never think "where did all my money go?"