You need a little Mint in your life. Mint is a hosted* financial management service that ports data directly from your accounts. It helps with budget management, keeps track of where your money goes, makes money-saving recommendations, and compares your spend to others in your area. (Gotta love rivalry.)
I'd say the benefits rival Quicken's -- maybe even exceeds them -- but Mint is so much easier to deal with and understand. Plus, it's FREEEEE! Plus, it's got CURVY CORNERS!
The service is currently in beta. I'm not sure how it makes money** (some sort of deals-oriented kickback? Maybe it could get chummy with Experian?), and because I love it so far I have this horrible fear that, post-beta, it'll castrate my functionalities and demand a subscription fee.
After a few months of Minty freshness, I might just pay it, too.
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* That means Mint hosts your information. No downloads to your desktop -- you can access your account info from anywhere.
** After perusing the website slightly more than casually, I discovered it sells your information. Well shucks, that was obvious, wasn't it.
2 comments:
They sell your information? As in... they sell your information to direct marketers, or sell your phone number and email, or your spending habits? Were you able to find anything about that aspect? Do you think it would still be worth using in spite of that?
I've heard great things about Mint from other personal finance blogs...
I never keyed in my number/address. From what Benj (who uses it now too) and I can gauge, they only sell spending habits against your zip code. (You kinda get a sense of that, because it will compare your spend in a given category or store to the rest of your city.)
Yes, I think it's still worth using.
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