Digital Finance February: Yodlee, Mint, Geezeo, Cake

Despite prior raves about various digital finance sites, I'm ultimately still left unsatisfied with my current offerings.

I think what I want is simple. Sure, I'd like some cute features and nifty community learning options. But what it comes down to it, I want an online finance site that:

1. Shows me my checking and savings account data in REAL TIME (not 6 hours ago, not 3 days ago, but as in up-to-the-minute updates).

2. Includes my investment earnings and losses for the day/month/year. Cake has a great feature showing me how I'm performing versus the markets and other users. I imagine once investments are on the site, this feature can't be too hard to implement. I'd even be happy without it.

3. Budgeting tools. The sites are pretty good now at coming up with such tools. I love Mint's budget breakdowns. But it's not really helpful in the way I need it if the data isn't actually up-to-date. It isn't helpful if I have to go sign into BankofAmerica.com and breakdown my monthly spending just to keep on top of everything AFTER I sign into Mint or any other second party bank account tracking site.

4. A *bonus* would be if the site provides me with legitimate ideas on how to save money. Not like Mint, that tells me if I switch to a $47 a month Verizon plan I'd save $x per year when the fact of the matter is, the only reason the month cost me so much at Verizon is because I went over on my minutes. In fact, I'm ALREADY ON the plan they recommended. If your recommendations are going to be wack, I recommend not recommending at all. How's that for a recommendation?

Cake.com
My latest find, thanks to a friend, is Cake.com. This site is... howdoyousay... hypothetically awesome for investors. That is, if it worked properly. (I've added my Sharebuilder account but am having trouble adding my Vanguard account). It's not really like Mint, Geezeo or Yodlee at all, so it probably should be compared separately... although if Cake really wants my business, they'd simply have to add my savings and checking accounts so I can track all my money at one place. And really my Vanguard account would have to work too.

Mint.com
By far, Mint still has the best UI. I love Mint, I really do. But I'm getting impatient waiting for them to add investing accounts. If Cake, Yodlee and Geezeo can all add investing accounts, and if Mint is built on top of Yodlee's architecture, I don't understand why it's so difficult to add investing accounts. Maybe they're not focused on 24-year-old "old fogies" like me that enjoy putting some of my monthly income into Sharebuilder and Vanguard. But I like to budget my monthly income based on how the market is doing (obviously this month I've been failing at that!) I think Mint is going to be amazing in the long run. They've already added a bunch of nice features (like a chart showing me how my spending on different things compares to other people in the area). But, come on Mint, add my investment accounts and maybe figure out how to make my data "update" as in "update currently" and not "update what my bank statement looked like yesterday" and I swear, I'll ask you to marry me.

Geezeo
Aw, Geezeo, Geezeo, Geezeo. I really want to like you. I found you and Wesabe first, and you were much better than Wesabe. You even have investment accounts now. But there's something about your UI I don't quite like. Maybe it's the fact that I'm having trouble adding my Vanguard account on here too, or, when I tried to add my ING Direct Savings account and waited about 5 minutes for it to process, you told me "Heavy traffic is causing delays. Please try again. If you think this is a problem with Geezeo, please tell us by making a Support ticket." I feel like there are just too many bugs on the site for it to be worth my time right now. Updates are just as delayed as any of the other sites. The UI is sloppy too. Mint, on the other hand, has such a nice design, with screen real estate divvied up quite nicely. Geezeo kind of looks like a kids toy. And the useful features are often buried at the bottom or hard to find.

Yodlee
Despite being boring (yawn) and basic (blegh) Yodlee is still my top digital finance choice. Why? On Yodlee, at the very least, I can see data from all of my accounts including Bank of America (checking, savings & credit card), ING Direct, Vanguard, Sharebuilder, Paypal and Prosper. Data is still a bit delayed, which bugs me, which means I still have to sign into BankofAmerica to check my current checking account status, but I can deal. At least I can see everything in one spot.