This time around I’d like to talk about my favorite finance tool ever - Mint. This is one of those things that people are either for or against; lots of people don’t like their information being accessed by another server. However, you’re giving your personal data up to the internet the second you put it on there anyway.
I’ve had no problems with mint, and I’m all for convienient technological gizmos. I love anything that makes managing my finances easier; and I have a lot of accounts. At one time I had a CD, a savings account, checking account, business checking account, paypal account, stock account, log ons for each bill, and who the hell knows what else that I’ve forgotten to mention.
Mint fixes this dilemma by letting me view what’s going on with these accounts all in one place. Now, you can’t do things like withdraw or deposit money with Mint’s site - Only view information. However, this is very useful, because it gives you what we all need to see! The big financial picture incorporating all of your accounts together side by side.
If you like you can also set budgets, and Mint will e-mail you a nice little reminder if you go over. For example if you set $100 limit for resturants, and you eat out in the $120 range then you’ll get a big cease and desist e-mail. For people who are too free with their debit cards this could be a good thing.
The comptuer is pretty smart at figuring out which items are which, but some could be a little tricky. If you need to you can re-label this items yourself to make sure they’re detected correctly. By checking a little box you can be sure they get labeled right from then on too.
They recently added stock brokerage participation, and so now I can even see how my stocks are doing with everything else. You’ll get a nice little set up that will compare cash to debt just so you can know how far in the hole you really are!.. Well, some people may not want to know that..
You can also add your loans, and credit cards to analyze your debt. Seeing it all in perspective might be enough to make you put down the plastic, and do without that new expensive leather jacket for a while.
Mint will also try to match you with offers to save you money. These have yet to be very helpful to me though, and this section could us some work honestly. It’s basically how they pay the bills around there I think. I always have ‘amazing’ credit card offers, but the system doesn’t take into account that the new ‘lower rate’ is only introductory, and I won’t be saving anything by changing. My rate is already the same as they’re offering usually. They also keep trying to offer me a lower CD rate than what I have, because for some reason it won’t display my real APY percentage on Mint.
I would love to see your standard bills be added to Mint’s arsenal. Honestly, I forget when they’re due sometimes. Even if I have the money I just can’t seem to peg down some of the changing ones like the electric bill. It would be great for mint to collect this information, and display it all in one place.
I do get sent reminders for some, but not others! I signed up for paperless billing from AT&T expecting an e-mail bill from them. Nope! Not a word, they’d let it be late. No option in my profile to get one from them either. No idea what’s up with that, but oh well I guess. They do have bill reminders for credit cards though.
I’d also like to see Mint Mobile come into play. The site does function decently on my iPhone, but I’d love to see an exclusively mobile version of the site. This would take it from a cool dodad to a necessity for most people. Being able to click an App on their home screen, and see everything at once would make a big difference to Mint’s traffic I think. Able to view checking, savings, and credit balances all in a second? Awesome.
Mint still has a five star rating from me, and I recommend their service to anybody looking to simply life a little bit.
Related Posts -
Review - Sharebuilder So, you've heard from everyone that you need to get into stocks, but you have no idea what a broker is or why you need one? Share builder is a great start for you to get into the world of trading! If you want to buy stocks then you...... -
Job Scams - Criminals Are Working Harder Than Ever! It's a tough time for the United States economy, and unfortunately there are those out there looking to take advantage of people that already are barely making ends meet. While it's true that there are plenty opportunities to be had it's also important to be weary of fishy situations....... -
Get your bills together by eliminating them? Go paperless! If you're more than about twenty years old then you remember the days before online banking. When you had to tediously mark out every transaction by hand in your bank register to keep track of your spending. Thank goodness I don't have to do that! It's easy to get...... -
Refer yourself to cheap hosting for your website! Are you an aspiring webmaster, but the economic downturn is leaving you a little pressed for cash? If you refer yourself to a company's affiliate program you can save a nice chunk of money. If you want to operate a website then you need hosting - bottom line. There's...... -
Could you see the world through home exchange? I've been thinking so much about travel lately, but it's costly! My two biggest wish list places are England, and Brazil. The airfare is expensive, and so are accommodations especially with currency exchange seeing as GBP are far more valuable than American dollars. The more I watch 'The Holiday'......
Related Websites -
Slim Clip Wallet It's time to rid yourself from your bulky wallet, and replace it with Slim Clip! The NEW sleek and modern Double-Sided Money Clip. Slim Clip's genius "clips on both sides" invention tightly holds as many as 30 bills on one side and up to six credit cards securely on...... -
Making Money Out Of Thin Air! I hate network marketing, I mean really who wants to go to meeting and convince their friends and family to get involved with a business that could potentially free them from financial prison? I always liked the idea of making residual income while I was off doing other things. The...... -
5 Credit Cards That Will Save You Money On Holiday Purchases This article comes from DR at The Dough Roller, a blog about money management. With the holiday buying frenzy in full progress, there is no better time than the present for some money saving strategies. One of them is simple, easy, and free--using the right credit card to make holiday...... -
Payday Loan Alternatives Payday loans are costly. If you need cash to pay bills, repair your car, prevent shutoff of utilities, etc, thus, consider the alternatives. To help you avoid the fees of payday loans we can consider a few alternatives. Selling If you have items about your home that you no longer......
-
Repair Credit FAST Will Not Happen If One Of These Thieves Targets You! Repair credit fast (or slow or even at all) will not happen if you become a victim of Identity Theft! And I'm speaking from experience. I'm not going to jump into details about my two brushes with these cowards...it's too frickin' painful and unnecessary. You absolutely MUST take action on......
Recent Comments