In honor of my husband’s birthday tomorrow (Happy birthday, Scottie!) I thought I’d delve into Scottland for a bit and share with you a new way that the hubs has been keeping our money in check. One thing I love about Scott is his insane organizability (yeah, it’s not a word… just run with it) when it comes to our finances, but it’s also the thing that drives me nuts about him. Our finances are so in check that it’s sick, but that came at the price of me always having to hold onto receipts and log them into Quicken in a matter of minutes after a transaction occurred. Well, thanks to this new site that my dear husband found, our days of saving receipts are long gone. Score!
Mint.com is a website that serves as a financial organizer for your moola – and so much more. You basically set up the website with all of your money items (credit cards, mortgage, savings, loans, etc.) and it picks up on when a purchase or transaction happens and updates it in the website. Now, this is cool enough in my eyes because we no longer have to log every receipt in order to keep on top of what we’re spending – the site does it for you! I could be sold on that fact alone, but this site has tons of other features that are super useful.
Take for instance, figuring out how much money you spend where. Mint.com takes all of the legwork out of it, and creates nice little visuals like these (taken from the front page.. you don’t think I’d share my big money info with you nice folks, did you?) that give you an idea of where your precious dough is being spent. I know that if I see a visual like a pie graph, it helps me remember how much I’ve spent on fun stuff and when we need to cut back. They also have a great budget tool where you can set up how much you think you should be spending on each category in your life, and the bar graph will let you know when you’re getting close to your limit each month. The site also hosts a great interface that’s easy to read (and nice to look at), as well as a homepage that lists all of your accounts, stocks, etc. in one easy place to follow. It’s really super simple to use – if you want a methodical way to keep track of your money but don’t have an eager husband like myself, then hop on over to this site and see what they’re all about. Any money saving/sanity saving tips out there you’d like to share?
Images courtesy of mint.com … who did not endorse this post. Pinkie swear.
This is way cool. You two are impressive.
Quicken does all that too. We just download our Visa (and bank accounts) and you don’t have to type any transactions in. It’ll show you pie charts and all the spending categories you put in too. I’d checked out mint.com before, and can’t say I feel really comfortable w/all my finacial data on the web. How do you feel about it’s security? Just curious!
This seems like a fantastic tool, but I’d too be worried about security.
@LauraC and Amy: I was a little worried about the security as well, but we view it just like online banking. You don’t actually have to put in any account numbers on mint.com; it basically accesses your online banking, which is run by a third party as well. Quicken is certainly more secure, unless the unfortunate happens and someone yanks your laptop! Thanks for letting me know that Quicken has those fun new features – something to think about!
To LauraC, this is Audrey’s husband…for the past several years I was methodical with Quicken as well. Although I input our stuff manually because I didn’t want to put in account numbers on my computer in the event it was ever stolen. Quicken is a great tool for the PC but leaves a little to be desired on the Mac version. For this reason I made the jump to Mint and managing our finances in the cloud.
With Mint should someone steal your laptop/computer they would still need to crack your authentication to get in. If they ever got that far the only thing they’d be able to see is how much you paid for that Italian dinner last Friday night. :)
Whatever tool you choose kudos to you on being mindful of your spending.
Mint is the coolest thing ever! I have been calculating this stuff for months by hand and this site does it all in a minute for free. Love it!
Hey – Scott and Audrey, This is LauraC again, I just checked back in and saw your fantastic responses! Not being cool enough to own a Mac ;=) I didn’t know there were differences. Nice to know. Hubby and I do have all our account numbers in Quicken, but it’s password protected even to open Quicken. Not impossible to break I’m sure, but makes me feel better. We have two laptops, and mine is basically treated like a desktop, so we never take it anywhere. Thanks for the input!