The website that I have chosen to review is WiseBread. I chose this site mainly because it was available and no other students had picked it yet. After reviewing it, I would probably have picked this site anyway. It has a more real world approach than the “mainstream” financial websites and is geared towards personal applications.
The home page is very inviting and has the right “hooks” to keep you looking. The screen shot below is a great example of this. Saving money, hot topics, and keeping in contact with you kids traveling are the main topics in today posts. These are items that most of us are facing right now and at least appeal to me versus reading stuffy post about investments that I am not doing anyway.
The main focus of WiseBread is budgeting and living on a small income. As I was browsing through the site, I drilled down into the budgeting tab and focused on doing a “Spending Freeze”. While I have not yet done a spending freeze, I was able to use the tips to calculate the benefits that I would receive if I were able to do so. My family of 4 could save between $500 and $700 per month of discretional spending. Wow, I had no idea that much money was slipping through the cracks each month. That is a nice car, pool, or boat payment if I can reduce that unnecessary spending.
The target market of WiseBread appears to be the 30 to 40 something’s that are living on a budget. It has connections to Facebook and many other social networks which allow for instant access to the budget tips and articles to help us squeeze every dime out our expenses. The primary focus of the website is budgeting and quick steps to a frugal approach to living. There does not seem to be any direct links to tools that can be used in debt management or personal finance; but there are an unlimited amount of articles with practical applications for self-help. There is not a