Wood for Good + Leather Love Wipes...

How do you not love methodhome.com's email blasts? They are wittily written, a little bit wicked and beautifully structured. They're my most favourite in all the world.



(I guess Mint.com's finance updates are my second-favourite marketing emails, if making me feel mildly panicked once a week is the same as feeling love.)

A Little Bit of Attitude, Sugar

Mint.com is so charming it hurts. I mean, this email was enough to make me feel smug about how the "Grown-Up Services" I've invested into increasingly share my humour and match my sensibility (without sacrificing the need for transparency and calm reassurance). Then I leaped facefirst into the website, where I saw the following maintenance message:



I saw that and I was like, GAH! That's just the cutest! (And doubly reassuring!) Check them out, all tightening screws and protecting my data with a little smack of chutzpah. It doesn't even matter that the site's down right now, I'm happy to dance around and wait.

We don't need corporate vanilla, that dull numbing attitude that protects you from legal rebuke and that nobody reads. What social media's taught us is that enterprises ought to be more human. And when you're human, it's okay to put the red shoes on under your workday trousers. It can even brighten days.

Be the Fred Astaire of unhappy situations!

Trust

Him: I need something to organize my spending and show where all the money goes.

Me: I use Mint. It's magic!

Him: What is that, a website?

Me: Yes! The interface is beautiful, it links to all your accounts and credit cards, everything is updated automatically and organized by expense type...

Him: You gave a WEBSITE all your financial account details?

Me: Well ... yeah. When you think about it, public sites are more incentivized than private persons to maintain security--

Him: I'm not like you. I can't just trust the internet.

Image credit: kloniwotski.

Quicken-Induced Aging?

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.