Mints and Money

Okay, so I am cautious about writing this post…
It is about the root of all things evil…
One of the things I hate more than anything in the world…
Money.

Money makes everything confusing… I hate money!

What?! I thought this was supposed to be a funny upbeat laugh at Josh and Kelley blog. Why are we talking about money? EEwww!

Well, it is happy and upbeat… At least I think so.

Okay, so I was surfing around online checking out the blogs I love, and one of them had a post about Mint.com. The lady that runs this blog was asking if anyone has every used this site, and, if so, what they thought about it. I couldn’t help it, I had to reply and tell her how wonderful mint.com is. My reply ended up being about four paragraphs long… oops ;) I just couldn’t help it, I love this site! It has helped me and Josh so much with our finances and I really feel like I need to tell everyone I can about it because it is so amazing!

I was telling Josh about how I went on and on about this website in a reply and he said I should post about Mint.com on our blog. Well, I think that is a GREAT idea! This site has totally organized and changed our finances for the better, and if I can help other people by telling them about it I should shouldn’t I?

Well, money is a touchy subject… I don’t think anyone wants to be told how to deal with their money. And I sure don’t want anyone to think that I am the all-powerful all knowledgeable tell you what to do with your money queen. I mean, I am not… last time I checked I did not own a crown or scepter… so no, I’m not. I just want to share something really cool that Josh and I have benefited from. So, don’t be mad, be excited, this site is soooo awesome!

Okay, so here goes…

Josh and I have been using mint.com for almost two years now. I would have to say it is the best thing that has ever happened to our finances. It is VERY user friendly! You just input all of your loans, savings accounts, checking accounts, credit cards, and that kind of stuff and the site puts all of your information in one place so that you can see all of this information as once. Then you can tell mint how much money you want to spend on certain things every month. I got on there one day when we first started using it and just spent a while kicking out a budget. You can budget EVERYTHING! We have a monthly budget for fast food, entertainment, home, groceries, shopping, gas, and restaurants, but there are SO many other things you can decide to budget and watch closely.

For each area that you choose to budget the site will tell you if you are on track, if you are doing extra well, or if you need to slow down on the spending (it has really easy to read graphs and stuff). You know if you need to cut back in one area or if you can afford to go out and get that little ice cream treat you are craving… This is good for me… Ice cream is pretty much my drug of choice any given day of the week ;)

After you have been using it for a few months you will really get an idea of where all of your money goes on a regular basis. Mint will tell you things like most of your extra money goes to fast food, or you spend an average of $80 a month on going out to the movies. So you can find areas in which you think you might be able to start cutting back in order to create some savings. You can then adjust your budgets to match these new spending criteria. You can even make a one-time change to your budget if you need to make a large or important purchase.

One of my favorite features of mint is that it shows you if you are having red months or green months (if you have more or less money coming out than going in overall). For example, when Josh and I bought our house, HUGE red month… But, we can now watch our saving start to slowly climb back up, which is encouraging to watch and keep track of. I feel like all of our frugalness is really paying off when I get to see one of those nice extra green months!

This site is awesome because you can actually see EVERYTHING in one place. I can say, "Wow babe, we are doing great this month, we are half way through the month and we still have not spent even half of the money in any of our budget areas!" Or I can look and say, "Okay, no more fast food for us, we are 3/4 of the way through that budget and it is only the first week of the month."…yeah… that happens sometimes :)

On top of all of that, this site has helped us multiple times when we have been overcharged for things. You can go online and see EVERY transaction from all of your accounts all in one place. So, we look over it every now and again and make sure everything looks normal. One time redbox charged us $25 for one movie that they did not think we returned. Mint pointed this out to us and we were able to call and get our money back.

So yeah, I don’t mean to preach at anyone! I am sure all of our friends and family totally know how to handle their finances all on their own. Still, mint.com has pretty much changed our lives and we really just want to recommend it to EVERYONE! It is so much easier to save money when you can really see where all of your money is going!

Oh, and here is some technical information from Josh for those of you who are wary of giving this site your information:

Mint.com is a read only service so it can't change any info on your bank account and you can't move money or spend money with it. When you give them your information there are no account numbers involved, meaning even the mint employees never see your account information and they couldn't if they wanted to because the system is built that way. Also, Mint.com has all the same encryption as your bank.

Don't even think about trying this site if you don't want to. I don't want to make anyone do anything that they don't want to do. But, if you do try it, let us know what you think!

P.S. I forgot one of the most important parts, Mint.com is totally FREE! Thanks for reminding me Lori :)

-Kelley