Nanny Adventures

Oh Budget!

We have all been told at one time or another we need to follow a budget.  However the problem we run into is how exactly to set one up and where our money goes. We would  all love a personal financial planner but can’t afford one. Today I bring you some hope to this frustrating process. I recently discovered an incredible site called Mint.   This is a FREE site that is the next best thing to a financial planner. It tracks your spending habits over the past 90 days. It will sync and track your financial accounts, help create budgets and alerts you if you have been charged a bank fee or have gone over your monthly budget. There is also a feature that analyzes your accounts and can recommend additional checking and savings accounts for better interest rates including credit cards. It provides you with a pie chart of your expenses and investments. This is great if you are a visual person. Mint automatically categorizes expenses and line items which is very useful. You can also create your own categories if the default ones don’t make sense to you.

I went to the site and signed up. It took 10 minutes to sign up for my account. The main information you need is your login, password, and security question for all the accounts you want to track. Now you might be saying  “Why, would I give them access to my information?”  They use the same security sign in systems as your credit cards and banks.  They are a “read only” site. They don’t have your account numbers. You cannot move money around in this system. For more information on their privacy policies  you can look here.  It is a secured network. 

Mint.com was named one of the 50 best websites of 2008 by Time Magazine. and has won multiple Webby and PC World awards. It was also named Best New Financial Service at the American Business Awards.

I have been using the site for about a week and love it. It will send me updates on balances and when credit cards are due. Today I got a notice that American Express was due on the 27th, I stopped what I was doing and paid the bill.