Imagine logging into an app and having all of your financial information at your fingertips, updating in real-time. Sound far-fetched? Nigh on impossible after attempting your New Year’s resolution to get organized and eventually succumbing to a tree’s worth of statements and spreadsheets? If you are already comfortable with online access to your sundry financial accounts, you should consider looking into Mint.
I have been happily using Mint myself for over a year and I’ve found it to be a wonderful time saver and an effective planning tool. Not bad for a free service that beat Quicken at its own game.
How does the magic happen? You sign-up at www.mint.com and create a user name and password. So far, so good. The next step requires a seeming “leap of faith” to quote the good Dr. Jones.
Image courtesy Paramount and Lucasfilm
You provide the login credentials for each of your other online accounts and Mint automatically begins to pull in recent transactions for each account. Online security is a major concern these days, but Mint is a secured read-only service, so your funds stay put.
An extremely intelligent auto categorization function picks a description for each transaction from a large number of categories. If you disagree with Mint relegating Chipotle to “fast food”, you can permanently reassign all Chipotle transactions to the “restaurant” category or perhaps “fast-casual” if you want to add some custom flair. It’s almost as good as the Chipotle guacamole.
There are a number of other tools, including budget creation and alerts, trend analyses with snazzy charts and graphs, goal trackers and more. This video gives a nice synopsis:
Mint is available from any web browser and has award-winning apps for the iPhone and Android devices for access on the go. Go here to read more about the service: www.mint.com/how-it-works/
Questions? Contact us!