Two Cool Financial Sites

Recently I've come across two financial sites that have blown me away. The first is Mint. Mint offers you a centralized place to track all your finances. That in and of itself is nothing new. Their are hundreds of places where you can do that. The cool thing is it classifies your transactions and then gives you a comparison to others in your area. You may find out you are spending $800 a month on groceries and the average in your area is only $300.

The Second site is Prosper. Prosper is a personal and small business loan facilitator. Think music file sharing for lending. Here is an example. You want to borrow $5,000 to start that lemonade stand you've wanted to do since you were 4 years old. You signup, create a profile, and state how much money you are looking for, how much you are willing to pay (interest rate) and the repayment terms. Then lenders (individuals) can look at your profile and decide to lend to you based on your proposal. You might have 100 people that lend $50 each or 10 people that lend $500 each. It is a really revolutionary concept.