Useful website of the week #4: Mint.com
First, I am aware that for some people, this website might be a little scary. I acknowledge the “scariness” and I too was a little wary to start using it. But, if you can get past this, Mint.com is pretty cool. Mint.com is a “Web 2.0″ website or web tool that will aggregate all of your financial account balances in one place. Imagine having all of your financial information in one spot that shows all your bank accounts, credit card, 401K accounts, and other investment accounts balances and transactions. Your entire “Net Worth” all in one place to see.
At first glance, although not that obvious, it seems that Mint.com has access to all of your money. But in reality it does not. Well… they have your passwords to your accounts but that is all. Mint.com uses the same security that, hopefully, your bank already does when you access your account online. But unlike your online bank account, you cant do anything from the Mint.com page. You cant pay bills or transfer money, only view balances.
Watch this video:
But viewing your money is not all Mint.com gives you. It has a built-in, basic budgeting page to help manage your money and a reporting or “trending” page to run reports. If you’re not already using Quicken for money management then Mint.com is good tool to use for just that purpose.
I mention Quicken here for two reasons; first, if you are using Quicken already then the planning and trending options are not very useful but rather redundant. Second, Quicken just purchased Mint.com and has integrated it with their services already.
Other positives about Mint.com:
- Its free!
- Its simple to setup. Just have your user-id’s and passwords ready for all the accounts you want to track.
- There is an APP for it! Download the iPhone app and login to your Mint.com account directly. Setup balance alerts and other transaction alerts to pop-up on your iPhone!
Final thoughts
Like I said before, there are some who will find this a little to scary to use. Giving a third party your account information just seems a little wrong. That is probably the hardest thing to get past before using Mint.com. I have used it for several months now and having all the info that Mint.com provides at my finger tips has been worth it to me. If you are already using or accessing your accounts thru the web then this shouldn’t scare you any more. Use the same dilegence as you already do and keep your eye out for anything strange. Nothing is 100% secure and you should already be mindful of every penny that goes in or out of your empire.
