Useful Websites for Personal Finance

Well, I searched the internet looking for information about refinancing my house and came across a bunch of different websites that were interesting and useful for personal finance. These websites reminded me that I am getting close enough to retirement age so I looked for information on what I have to do to get financially secure enough to retire as soon as possible. Then there are the tax rebates we are getting; I don't know about you, but ever since I heard about the tax rebate I've been plotting what to do with it. I found useful information in all these areas and I thought I would share it with you. In no particular order here is what I found:

Internal Revenue Service
Let's start with the people who are handing out the money. You can find out whether or not you are getting a rebate and if you are getting one you can check to see when your money is due to arrive. If you are expecting a refund and it hasn't arrived you can check on that while you are there. The IRS has more than tax forms on their website, they also have information on email scams you need to watch, a large list of statistics you can examine and much, much more.

Investor's Clearinghouse Saving Calculator
This is a financial calculator for kids. First, it asks how old you are, then asks for a money amount and if you can't figure what to put you can choose between different options like $45 for a computer game or $5 for fast food meal then it calculates how much money you would have if you saved it instead. Let me give you an example: If I were 10 and I saved $10 instead of spending it, in 10 years I would have #22.20 in my savings account; in 25 years it would grow into $73.40 and at retirement age that $10 would have grown to $802.70.

Financial Calculators from KJE Computers Solutions, LLC
This website is like the Big Daddy of the financial calculator websites I have found. This site has 300 different financial calculators in 10 categories. If you don't already have Java on your computer you will need to install it to use the calculators. I haven't looked at all 300 financial calculators yet, but the ones I've used are easy to use. Just plug in your numbers and out comes the solution with charts. Yes, charts. While using the different calculators, I saw line and bar charts, but my all time favorite was the multicolored pie chart - it gives you a great visual of just where your money went.

Federal Student Aid
If you are trying to figure out if you can afford to go to college or not this website has a budget calculator. It's pretty basic: expenses are subtracted from income. If you are probably thinking, "what is the big deal? I can just do that with paper and pencil." Well I could see it being helpful because of the different categories of both income and expenses that are listed may jog your memory and you will get a better idea if you really can afford college.

Best of Calculators
This website has many different financial calculators from different mortgage and investment calculators to a future value calculator, but if you really want to depress yourself try the Real Hourly Wage Calculator.

Bankrate.com
I wish I had known about this website when I was painting my house, because it has a calculator that will figure it out for you. If you are doing more than painting, then this is the website for you. There are calculators for how much wallpaper, ceramic tiles, wood floor and carpet you need. Along with these extremely useful calculators they have the normal financial calculators for mortgages, investments, loans, savings, retirement and much, much more.

Free Annual Credit Report
Here is where you can really get your credit report free. The catch is you can only ask for one once a year.