Wednesday, October 15, 2008

WIW: Happy Wallet

It's that time of the week. Since some of you may be suffering from the stock market crash and the economy issues - I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone (wha-hat is up with that saying? Why not: "Bake two different kinds of cakes in one pan" or something more peaceful and delicious? Anyway.) This week's item is not only free of cost, it will also help you spend more wisely.

Behold...MINT.COM

Worth: Abso-freaking-lutely FREE! Not only is this completely free - it will also HELP you with your finances. Score.

Works For: Anyone who has money! Also, if you should/do budget, keep track of their money, or just pay attention to your cash flow.

What I Love:
1. It compiles all my accounts into one place - my savings account, checking account, credit card, and student loans are all there. It calculates your net worth based on your assets and debts. (Which is scary. I'm negative. Darn student loans!) 2. It sends me emails when I have bill due soon - or when I go over my budget. Oops.
3. Speaking of budget, it creates one for you based on past spending - you can change it however you like and it'll keep track for you.
4. You can see how much you spend on groceries or eating out or gas each month with an interactive pie chart (see right) or how much you've spent at Whole Foods in the past week/month/year. (I cringed a little.)
5.
I'm kind of a numbers dork - so I like that you can even compare your spending with other people in another city or state. Clevelanders sure do like their Target!!

What I Wish: That I had more money to PUT into the bank. Okay, okay - no criticism of Mint.com - have I mentioned it's freeee??

15 comments:

  1. Um that is pretty much amazing. You are now my bested bud!!! Just what I needed!!!!!!!

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  2. I love it too, eventhough I have difficulties linking my accounts BOO. We are on the Dave Ramsey plan right now where you starve and pay everything off. It helps though.

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  3. Wow that is such an awesome site! I really need to be more organized when it come to my finances. Thanks for the tip!

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  4. I prefer "kill two hunters with one bullet." It's the birds' revenge, courtesy of Dick Cheney and all those hunters who go around shooting each other.

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  5. seems pretty cool!! i just don't like giving out my bank account info!!!

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  6. That's really cool. I have the same issue with giving out my info though. But I do love the idea of it.

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  7. What a great idea! I was all super pumped about it -- except it doesn't support my lil ol Fresno bank. Boo! I sent them an email and told them to support it though! Hopefully! I want this service to make me a budget! Thanks for sharing about mint!

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  8. Huh I need to check this out. Thanks for the link!!

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  9. you seriously rule. i'm not kidding. i can' thank you enough for all of your wisdom!!

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  10. Bank of America has something extremely similar to that that I use. Then again, I have my own spreadsheet with multiple tabs with all of my financial info. I'm kind of a geek that way=)

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  11. That sounds incredible! I'm gonna have to give it a try!

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  12. Great tip! I'm looking into it right now :)

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  13. I'm going over to mint.com right now. I have been trying to get my finances in check for half a year now. I'm even taking a personal finance class to help motivat me. Maybe your suggestion will do the trick! Thanks!

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  14. I'm definitely going to check this out. Thanks!!

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  15. Wow, psychic much? I was JUST thinking last week how I needed a program to track my finances...I'm doing a bit of the bookkeeping at work and am learning a lot about why it's good to keep track of this stuff, and I feel like I need to do it for my personal finances too. I think I had heard of this before, but thank you for posting about this to remind me to get my @$$ into gear!

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