Mint.com Review: A Convenient Timesaver
Posted on January 15, 2009 15 Comments
Given that I run a site called The Budgeting Babe, people are always asking me to review one financial product or another. And I usually decline. Why? Some valid reasons, some not… For one, I have never considered myself a financial expert that should be judging someone else’s work. But also most requests are poorly written and the sites look bad (are difficult to understand, boring or sketchy). So rather than hurt someone’s feelings and waste my readers’ time, I typically stay away from these kind of requests.
The sites and products I do write about are those that I actually use myself. They add value to my daily routine – which is quite rushed anyway – and serve as a time saver, rather than just one more thing to do. They have to capture my fancy and be relevant to me, whether or not they work for the rest of the population.
In the curious case of Mint.com, however, I’ve simply been hit over the head with so many ringing endorsements from friends (via facebook and in person) that I succumbed to the pressure. Tonight, I signed up for a Mint.com account. And two hours later, I was still on the site, modifying entries, searching trends and making looking for mobile capabilities so I can access my accounts anytime, anywhere. So there you have it, peeps, I did it.
Is this Budgeting Babe in love? Not yet. I see some pluses and some minuses to the site. My initial security concerns still exist (especially after visiting their forums), I don’t like the offers portion of the site and I would like to see some improvements to the mobile site. But my overall impression is that Mint.com is a convenient timesaver with a lot of potential that will ultimately enable me to free up more time for work, the gym and my friends. It’s a good place to start your financial journey if you’re currently using the Web to manage your finances (but not actively interacting with them), and it seems easier to use than MS Money. And best of all, it’s free.
A deeper dive into my experience follows.
POSITIVES
As I mentioned, the site is easy to use. Setting up an account is a snap and not much of your personal data is needed to sign up – just a password and your zip code.
Once you set up your accounts, your “home” screen (that displays your activity overview) is well-designed to show helpful information upfront, like account alerts, simple pie charts of spending activity, current account totals and a quick net worth display.
This was eye-opening for a few of my friends – one mentioned that she noticed Starbucks was her most frequent retailer visited last month (she was surprised and said she’d kick the daily habit). For me, a lot of the information displayed was already on file on my computer (in spreadsheet form). But the nice thing about Mint.com is that the site does everything for you; I don’t have to calculate my net work every month, it’s already done. That’s a timesaver. Likewise with seeing my spending categories – they all were what I expected month-to-month, but I didn’t have to calculate them manually… nice.
There are a couple other good features I noticed – for instance, my rent check wasn’t easily recognized as rent, so I recategorized one entry as “rent” and all the other checks written for the same amount automatically updated (with the ability to change them again if needed).
THINGS I’M NOT SURE ABOUT
Rather than asking you for account information (SSN, account numbers), the site asks you to sign in to your accounts on other financial sites you’re already using. There is still personal information being exchanged. On one hand it still seems risky, but on the other hand, if you’re already using the web to manage accounts, you’re probably at risk anyway. Bad rationale on my part, but I’ve received notice of so many “secure” account breaches that I’m giving up on it in favor of being more vigilant and using trustworthy companies.
AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT
Two things that bugged me about the site:
1) There was some ad-supported content. This is to be expected since the site is free, and it’s late so I’m going to have a hard time articulating this, but here goes… it feels weird to have offers coming through onto a screen where my financial data is housed. The site claims to be secure, and yet, they have to be sharing some information to allow Discover to show a credit card rate offer that’s comparable to what I’m currently paying, or E-Trade to show ads that tout the return on their investment vs. my trusty savings account. I feel like I should get to opt-in to offers. As much as I like the site, I’d be willing to pay a small fee to have a site free of offers for peace of mind that my data is mine alone.
2) There’s an iPhone app, but no mobile-ready site. I’m starting to live off my mobile phone, which is a BlackBerry. I would love to open a BB app and have all my data in front of me (“Can I really afford that? Let me check my phone!”), but it doesn’t look like that’s possible yet.
So there you have it. I’m tired and need to go to bed.
What do you guys think about Mint.com? Are you using it?
Category: Money
Tags: budgeting
Comments
15 Responses to “Mint.com Review: A Convenient Timesaver”
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January 15th, 2009 @ 7:25 am
I’ve been using Mint for about a month or so and I’m not super crazy about it. I had trouble getting my ING account on there because there were so many different possible security questions to choose from and I couldn’t remember all of the ones I have on ING. I think I had that problem with at least one other account. I also don’t like how it’ll send me emails notifying me of a low balance in my checking account. I’m one of those people who balances her checkbook so I know exactly how much money I have. I’m sure there’s a way I can edit what email reminders I receive but I haven’t explored the site too much yet. Overall, I guess it’s nice just to see all of your finances laid out in one site.
January 15th, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
I’ve been using Mint for about 6 months now and I really like it. I check it almost every day to make sure my charges are being categorized correctly. It’s great for me as an actor, because I was able to custom label a category to separate my actor expenses, making it easier to organize my tax deductions as an independent contrator. Overall the site is really helpful, and I love the feature where you can create a monthly budget for certain categories (I’ve made 2 so far, for “Restaurants” and “ATM”, the 2 categories we tend to go overboard on) and it warns you with an email when you’re close to going over. My only complaints are that I still cannot add my 401(k), after multiple attempts and I’m still waiting to hear back from tech support, and I wish there were more graphs available, not just pie charts. But I definitely recommend trying it out if you’re curious.
January 15th, 2009 @ 3:02 pm
Cheers buddy, i’ll look into use Mint. Sounds pretty cool to me. Thanks!
Kitchen Bar Stools
January 15th, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
I’ve been trying Mint, but I don’t like it as much as Mvelopes (which is a pay service). I wanted to like it since it is free, but it doesn’t have as much of a planning functionality as Mvelopes. For example, it annoys me that it tells me I’m over budget all the time for certain irregular expenses like car insurance. I budget $40/month for car insurance but only pay it once every 6 months. It doesn’t show that I’ve saved the money to pay my car insurance just that I went over budget one month. This happens a lot and is annoying. I guess this would stop over the course of a year, but I just love the planning aspect of Mvelopes. It has really helped me get a handle on my expenses and plan my $$ effectively. I just wish it wasn’t so expensive
January 15th, 2009 @ 4:24 pm
Hah! Nicole! I left a comment about Mint a year ago I think…I’m so glad you like it! I’ve been using it for a couple of years now almost, and I love that the trends just get better and more detailed- giving me some serious depth into my cash.
January 15th, 2009 @ 5:27 pm
I tried Mint, but the problem was that I’ve been using the same bank account for literal years… it downloaded EVERYTHING and then expected me to tag and file the expenses…
…for three years’ worth of expenses…
Um. How about an H to the E-L-L no. So I went back to Mvelopes.
January 15th, 2009 @ 5:37 pm
similar to HRH, that feature annoys me. I’ve had issues with being able to refresh/add accounts also. I use yodlee through my bank for 3ish years now so I’m used to that. Also, for instance I buy $200 from jcrew, categorize it as shopping. If I return $200, it doesn’t negate/apply that return to the shopping amount, instead categorizing the return as a ‘credit card payment.’ So I end up with these high shopping amounts when in reality I really bought a lower amount and ended up returning some of it. (does that make sense?) So my pie graphs/etc. are always wrong.
I like the comparison feature for other cities, though.
January 16th, 2009 @ 3:46 am
i’ve been reading your blog for a few months now – hi!
Anyway, i absolutely adore mint.com. It’s so easy to use, and was such an eye opener for me when I first started (I spent HOW much on food?). It’s great way to keep tabs on all my accounts (of which I have many) in one spot. I love it!
January 19th, 2009 @ 12:37 am
I spent about the same amount of time setting up my account on Mint and I was thoroughly annoyed by the end of it. I’m not a fan. It’s a great concept and has the potential to be quite a valuable tool – but they need to streamline it some more.
January 24th, 2009 @ 6:18 pm
Leigh and Jay Hallinan are the poster family for frugality. They have some great tips on saving money and the environment at http://www.ebillplace.com/save money. And if you submit a tip, you’re automatically entered for a drawing to win one of six copies of America’s Cheapest Family” http://www.eBILLPLACE.com.
January 30th, 2009 @ 11:50 pm
The hardest thing about budgeting to me is dealing with non-fixed costs. I know what my car payment is, mortgage, food etc. If they vary, it’s never by much.
But my phone bills are crazy and tough to budget. I have a friend who’s trying to talk me into getting a prepaid cellphone. I thought they were kind of funky or just for drug dealers (LOL!) but I saw a display at Target and they looked pretty good. You couldn’t even tell the difference from regular phones. Plus I like the idea of paying in advance which is the way I like to budget whenever I can.
Anybody have any experience with these things?
I have it narrowed down between Trackfone and Net10 because they seem to have the phones with the things I need. Any thoughts?
February 2nd, 2009 @ 10:23 am
Don’t know about you but I still have a hard time parting with my credit card number to online vendors. What more to say laying out your whole financial history and numbers for one company to use.
I think its still a very risky thing to do even at this time. At any time a hacker and just steal your identity if he or she is able to crack the codes.
April 15th, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
Tried Mint but didn’t work well- I experienced troubles importing some of my accounts (an issue encoutered by several users apparently)but I moved on to YODLEE (I blogged about it ealrier today) and so far I love it! Just what I needed- Signed on 2 days ago after reading a lot about it.
September 7th, 2009 @ 5:17 am
I like the idea that I do not need to manually calculate my spending and that I can track my finances anytime for free! I think I will have to see it for myself. I also read about your friends blog about the Starbucks habit and the white lies we tell ourselves When we overspend. Thank you for this wonderful post. More Power!
January 20th, 2010 @ 10:34 am
While reviewing some online money management software websites,i came across manageme7.com and found the features to be very useful to handle our day to day financial transactions.