Past the Clouds

    As I had mentioned in my last post, on how I had floated through each month’s expenses and never had a clue as to where my funds were going.  I had to find a way to organize all these transactions or I would never evolve into the security I was looking for.  I needed a good program that would help me save time and money.  

     In doing so, I came across a slew of different personal finance programs and could have spent months exploring and testing out their features and options.  As the saying goes, “Time is money”, I wasn’t about to spend my time sorting through and decided to jump feet first after reading a few reviews.  I’m in the market to start saving money and decided to explore only free programs.  A web based application that would save me time (money) was my goal.

     After a few good reviews, I decided to get a fresh start with 

     I’m going on my third month with the program and I am really pleased and impressed with it so far.  Essentially, what it does is connect to all of your accounts and automatically (as well as manually) updates them onto mint.  Once there, they’re organized into categories and graphed on a pie chart for a great visual understanding of your whole financial picture.  You can set budgets, make notes on transactions, split them and a whole lot more. Here’s a screenshot with an overview of the site in .pdf format. 

     The way they make it possible to access all this for free, is by offering you “ways to save“.  By this, what they do is take a look at what you’re currently paying for a bill and show you how you would save by switching to another provider or service.  If you do decide to switch to the other provider, mint gets a percent for referring you to them.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to utilize any of their suggestions yet, but hopefully in the future.  It’s a very un-offensive way, that by no means attacks you with advertising and I don’t mind the slightest of it being there.

     I’m taking most people will be a bit skeptical, as I was, about the sites security.  After using the program for a couple months now, my worries are no where to be found.  It’s only natural to be worried when attaching financial accounts to a web based application.  But if you do any online banking, you are in no more danger than when you’re accessing your accounts there, as you are accessing on mint.  They partner with Yodlee, the leading online banking service provider to connect securely to your bank.  Read here about how mint keeps you safe. 

     There are still a few functions I have still yet to try out (downloading/exporting & printing), so I can’t say much to those aspects.  The only problem I’ve ever had is with mis-identifying certain transactions, which can easily be reverted to what they should be as long as you make an effort to check the sites updates now and again.  One feature I would love to see, is the ability to somehow incorporate an anticipated expense, in order to see its affect on the pie-chart and plan ahead.  Who knows, maybe we’ll see something of the sorts in the future, but in the meantime, I forecast with a trusty ole’ spreadsheet in Google Docs.