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A Tangled Financial Web
Making Sense out of Online Money-management Tools
By Jenn Director Knudsen
has offered investors the ability to purchase and manage Series EE and I savings bonds online. 
While these bonds aren't traditionally huge moneymakers, investors can expect a steady return on their purchase of treasury debt. You can purchase a Series EE or I bond for as little as $25 or as much as $30,000, and with the advent of online availability, people can transact 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Parents can use EE or I savings bonds to finance their child's education, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt. Money made on these bonds are exempt from state income tax, and some people may even qualify for the Education Tax Exclusion.
MSN money expert Liz Weston says though most online money-management resources aren't exclusively for parents, many companies offer software, such as Microsoft Money, that have specific information about saving for college.
Dave Connor, a stay-at-home dad from Lewisville, Texas, and avid Internet user, recommends SavingforCollege.com for parents bent on budgeting for their children's higher educations – now.
It's never too early to start, he says. "When [our daughter] came along, that was our whole new set of expenses," Connor says.
Just because a user can make every transaction she'd like online, that doesn't mean she's comfortable doing so. Lots of people prefer speaking to a live person before, say, inputting information or transferring funds from one stock to another.
Many financial institutions recognize this need for the "human touch," as Taschetta puts it. Sites like Fidelity's include phone numbers so that an investor can call and get a live analyst or customer-service representative on the phone to answer questions or make recommendations. In fact, some institutions even include a feature on their sites that signals the wary user to call the company for more information.
And what about security concerns? Newspapers often run stories about identify theft and credit card companies hacked by computer whizzes. For some, these issues are non-issues.
