I did a segment on the Weekend Today Show this morning looking at best bets for your finances online. Americans conducted 13.5 billion online searches in January – many of them looking for financial info. The web offers online courses, financial calculators to help you plan, shopping comparison sites and  social networking sites where you can connect with other people about money.

Then I went running with my friend Pam, who said I talk too much with my hands on T.V. (true) and she couldn’t keep up with all the websites I mentioned. So this post is for you, Pam!

Here are the details on the education sites for beginners: First check out the Cooperative Extension System. It brings together the teaching and research of more than 100 universities, and has more than 3,000 county offices. It offers online courses, you can click on your state to get information about classes in your area, and you have the ability to submit financial questions and get an expert response by email. A site with similar features is called Wi$eup from the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau – aimed at Gen X and Gen Y Women.

And finally there’s the OpenCourseWare Consortium — a group of 250 universities around the world that offer dozens of online courses for free, 17 in the U.S., including heavy hitters like Columbia University and MIT. They have advanced courses in economics; I found two basic personal finance courses at the University of California – Riverside and Utah State University.

Then there’s an ocean of financial information sites, if you know how to surf them. Look to the non-profit, ad-free education sites so you can be sure there’s not a bias toward a particular financial product or service. Before using a site, look at the “About” section and check the background and credentials of the people running the site. For instance, the Federal Trade Commission offers good educational resources on its “Consumer Information” tab. The site 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy is sponsored by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants so you know it’s been vetted by professionals.

Yahoo!Finance has calculators and how-to guides, Microsoft Office has free Excel budgeting templates, you can find the best interest rates on savings accounts at www.bankrate.com or www.moneyaisle.com, and then there’s the whole world of coupons.

In January, Yahoo searches for the “Free printable online coupons” rose 3800 percent from the year-ago period. You can go to a more generic site like www.smartsource.com or go right to the manufacturer. For instance, Proctor and Gamble lets you register to have coupons emailed directly to you, and, depending on your grocery store, can even be downloaded electronically right onto your store’s loyalty card. You can also register at major brand like General Mills and get access to coupons that are only available online. So it’s worthwhile to check the sites of the brands you buy most. And if you do buy one and get one free, consider donating the second item to your local food pantry. The need is huge right now.

Finally,  I mentioned two budgeting and social networking sites, www.wesabe.com and www.geezeo.com  – that have social networking spaces where people share ideas about saving, paying down debt and other topics. Since money can be tough to talk about with friends, it’s nice to find a community where you can commiserate — and celebrate when you reach your goal.

What’s your favorite online tool? You can comment here or email me at laura at laurarowley.com.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 at 9:03 am and is filed under Money & Happiness, budgeting, coupons, economy, education, financial literacy, food/groceries, investing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.