Wesabe, a website that lets you manage and seek advice about your finances, just announced a new Cutback Tool to help.
Of course, by helping you understand your spending, any personal finance site is a cutback tool to a certain extent. Why else do I keep getting emails from Mint.com saying I've exceeded my budget or that I'm paying random fees on my bank accounts? Wesabe's new feature focuses on a specific part of the problem, probably the one most easily controlled; namely, recurring fees and expenses. The Cutback Tool flags all your recurring expenses, then shows you how much money you'd save annually if you reduced or eliminated the spending.
This is a cool idea, even if it probably won't help me shrink my iPhone bill. For example, Wesabe chief executive Marc Hedlund says he realized he wasn't watching enough movies to justify his Netflix subscription, while several beta testers realized they were paying $15 monthly fees to freecreditreport.com.
Intuitively, I'd expect personal finance sites like Wesabe to see strong growth in tough economic times as everyone tries to keep a closer eye on their finances. ComScore (top chart, click to enlarge) only started tracking Wesabe's numbers last month, so it's too early to spot any patterns, but competitor Mint.com has been climbing steadily for the last year (and is way ahead of Wesabe). Compete's data (bottom chart) shows that both Mint and Wesabe are growing.
The Berkeley, Calif. startup raised a $4 million first round in 2007 from Union Square Ventures and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.