i heart MINT.com

Posted on June 24, 2008 by JamieBee

A little background on JamieBEE. I LOVE to budget and plan! I have used almost every budgeting program invented such as Quicken, QuickBooks, Microsoft Money, etc. I have created my own programs in Google Docs, Excel, and Access. I do all my banking & bill pay online. I love to count every penny coming in > see where it is going > chart it at the end of the month > and discuss it with Garth. I have been fasicanted with accounting since a small child. I started using my first accounting & budgeting program (a ledger book & pencil) in the first grade keeping track of my reading money. (My mom would pay us a penny a page to read and I made over $100 by the age of 11). On sunday I asked Garth to take on another pet project website > a program that gathered all of my online transactions so that I could quickly see my budget without having to enter in all the information myself.

Now to the important information. MINT.com This is an amazing website! It is totally free!
It helps you to be aware of your finances. I tried pearBudget.com and wish that it did a little more for a little less money. THIS IS IT! Mint.com is amazing and totally free! (it makes money via advertising so does not charge you, the user (See Below, Ways to Save Tab). It took about 15 minutes to set up my Credit Cards & Bank Accounts and then it BLOWS your MIND! It catogorizes everything and keeps track of all your spending. It sets up a budget for you depending on your average spending. It tracks your spending so you do not have to. Really it is awesome! I love it as much as Google Reader now (which is saying ALOT for me!)
Adding Accounts
Adding an account is easy. Just click on the big box that says “Click to add any accounts” Mint connects to over 5,000 US banks and credit unions, credit card, brokerage, and mutual fund companies to keep your transactions and account balances automatically up-to-date. Mint even auto-balances your checkbook and auto-categorizes your transactions. Set it up once and you’re done.

Accounts Summary
After just a few moments it showed me these results of our transactions. Garth and I do everything via Credit Card or Online Banking. (We do not use cash for anything because it is so hard to keep track of where we are spending our money) Mint.com makes this so easy to do! THANK YOU!

5 TABS: TRENDS is my fav!
There are 5 tabs in the navigation. Overview, Transactions, Trends, Ways to Save (this is where they make their money via advertising), Accounts. Look at the middle tab Trends!!! This is the cool part! It has amazing graphs and charts! I don’t know if this will turn you on like it turns me on but WOW! Can I say WOW! It is an easy click or double click system. You can preview each color category focusing on the exact $ spent and the percent of your spending for each category.

Garth and I are geeked-out because it is created in Adobe Flex beautifully! Stand all amazed at the charting abilities, drag and drop, multi-loading functions, graphs, calcuations, colors, etc…. And to think on Sunday I was asking Garth if he would take on a budgeting program as his “pet-project” for me. NO WAY! This fulfills all my hopes and dreams without the backend management! Mint.com even has a Get Help section for those who need help! It is wonderful!