Until recently, the only time I really knew how much money there was in my checking account was when I saw the occasional receipt from the atm. Wesabe, a free online personal finance management tool has helped me pull my head out of the sand by giving me lots of simple, intuitive ways to keep track of what I earn and spend.

There are two ways to get your financial data into your Wesabe account. You can simply go to each account (bank, credit card) and download your individual transaction information to your computer, then upload the data to Wesabe. A more efficient option, however, is to use the Wesabe Uploader, a piece of software that resides on your computer that helps you automate the process of gathering account information.

Once your data is in Wesabe there are lots of features to help you keep track of your spending and earning. You can easily edit the “financial-eze” the bank gives you into a meaningful label. A purchase at Target, for example, shows up on my bank statement as “POS TARGET T0766/63435 HIGHW/63435 HIGHWAY 97 BEND 0327 S”; after I (or another Wesabean) shortens that to “Target” the program automatically edits future transactions for me (though I always have the option to edit it myself).

Even more useful, however, are Wesabe’s tagging features. You create the tags that make sense to you. Tagging each transaction as it comes in allows you to see what you spend on a particular category with one click. You can even set a spending target for a particular tag so you can instantly see how much of your gas money or grocery fund you have left. Transactions can have multiple tags and tags can be “split” so you can easily remember how much of that $50 you spent at Target was on gardening tools (garden:25) and how much was on socks (clothing:10). The tag splitting feature can also be useful for keeping track of cash.

Wesabe uses some social software features to allow Wesabeans to share their “collective wisdom.” In addition to your account information (available only to you of course!) there are sections for your goals (which you can choose to make public or private) and tips (suggestions for saving and spending wisely).

You can create your own goals in Wesabe or join with others who share your objectives. There are, for example, 583 Wesabeans who have set “paying off credit cards” as a goal. You can link tags (like “creditcardpayment”) and spending targets (like “no more than $300/month for groceries”) to your goals in order to track your progress. Tips are suggested to you based on your location, your goals and your tags.

Privacy and security are a particular concern when considering using the web for any kind of personal information, especially financial information. Wesabe has created a “Data Bill of Rights” to outline their commitment to users’ privacy. They’ve also been very forthcoming with information about the “super ninja privacy techniques” they use to keep your personal data secure. You can also create an account to take advantage of the goals and tips without adding any of your financial information if you wish.

There’s so much to say about Wesabe a single post can hardly do it justice (even when it’s as long as this one!) I have never used Quicken or Microsoft Money (or any other personal finance software that might be out there) so I can’t compare Wesabe to anything else, but if you’ve been looking for a way to feel more in charge of your finances or aren’t completely happy with your current personal finance software I’d encourage you to check it out.