Review of Mint.com
Zack Rosenberg | March 26th, 2009I shutter to think how much of my personal information is on the internet. My photo’s, career, education, etc. At this point Google probably knows what I am wearing right now as I write this. None of the less I decided to try out Mint.com after hearing some really great things about it and at this point why not put my most personal financial information out on the web? I mean I use online banking, I even pay bills electronically, is it really that big a leap of faith?
Mint.com is a free personal financial management tool. It doesn’t help manage stocks, although it will keep an eye on how they affect your net worth, and it wont pay bills but, it will help you keep your spending in check.
From Mint.com’s website: We download, categorize and graph all of your finances automatically every day, so you know where you’re spending, without spending any effort.
I think my description was pretty good too. In any event there is no question in these tough times people are looking for every which way to cut corners and save some extra cash. The first step of the Mint.com process is to enter your bank account information, online credit card passwords, bills, debts, assets and any other convceivable way money could enter or leave your wallet. I know, I know but as I said earlier these pieces of information are already out there online, now they are just being consolidated.
The second step of the process is to set your financial goals and notifications. The system tries to develop a picture of your spending habits and trends to try and guide you into reducing spending. For example lets say I currently spend $200 a month on eating out at restaurants and now my objective is to reduce my spending to $150. To help me reach my goal when any purchase is made at restaurant with either my credit card or debit card it is added to my monthly total, when I get close I will get an email from Mint.com as a reminder to slow down. They also offer text message alerts.
So where do they make money? Mint.com will make recommendations for new credit cards or high interest savings and checking accounts. While they do provide some valuable insights into how much each of these products will save or earn you, they will be earning a fee from each of these providers. I guess the good thing is that in aggregation they could offer better rates to Mint customers because, Mint can tell them without any intimate detail, if you are a great candidate for their services.
The most obvious question is how much did I save, right? Well not much. Not because Mint.com didn’t do its job but, because I apparently have spending issues. At the end of the day isn’t that how we got where we are in this country? My advice is that if your goal is to reduce your debt and you are not really willing to make adjustments then you will need to reevaluate. If you do truly want to be more responsible with your finances then Mint.com is for you. Even though you will have to give them every piece of vital financial data you have. Thats life.
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Tags: credit cards, debt, managing assets, managing finances, mint, mint.com, online money management, personal finance tools, zack rosenberg
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