Opinions about Mint.com?

[kristenm1975]

Hubby and I had one of "those" discussions about the finances last night and one of the things mentioned was our need to keep a better budget. So, being the dutiful wife that I am I went right to the web today while on break at work and set up an account with Mint.com. I figured it's free, which is a step in the right direction right off the bat, and it'll help me to see what's going on with my money and our bills.

When I proudly told aforementioned hubby about my actions, he made noises about it being unsafe, what with passwords and bank account information being listed.

What you do you guys think? Anyone have any experience with this site, good or bad?

Thanks!

 

[Wifezilla]

Looks like they are owned by Intuit. I wouldn't worry too much about it. They have been around a long time and know what they are doing.

Is hubby really worried about internet security, or that you will force him to follow a budget

 

[Dunkopf]

It doesn't actually ask for your bank acct info and password for your bank acct does it? You should probably check with your bank to see if it's a safe site instead of asking people on here.

 

[Meghan]

I'd been reading this forum for awhile, but just joined to be able to respond.

I love Mint.

Their method of accessing bank information is a lot like the way that Facebook applications access Facebook information. The service has access to a read-only version of your bank transactions.

It is still worth talking to your bank about their policies; some banks have a policy against this.

 

[Dunkopf]

Is that a very hard budget system to use. It seems like most of the systems are based on having enough money in the bank to start with to just pay your bills and keep track of your spending. I have a hard time using budget systems. I tried YNAB and it didn't work out real well. I went to the web sight and I couldn't find anything that really described the system. I was hesitant to push the get started button.

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

We've been using Mint.com for years now with great success!

It's a very safe, trust worthy site, that has all the "right" online safety mechanisms in place for maintaining your financial records. It is owned by Intuit, which if you use TurboTax for your taxes and/or QuickBooks for your business it makes it that much easier to transfer information.

With any financial tool, they only work if you actually use them. I found Mint.com an easy to use tool that can organize financial information in a way that I can use it.

Give it a try and see if it works for you.

 

[california_grown1962]

Hubby and I had one of "those" discussions about the finances last night and one of the things mentioned was our need to keep a better budget. So, being the dutiful wife that I am I went right to the web today while on break at work and set up an account with Mint.com. I figured it's free, which is a step in the right direction right off the bat, and it'll help me to see what's going on with my money and our bills.

When I proudly told aforementioned hubby about my actions, he made noises about it being unsafe, what with passwords and bank account information being listed.

What you do you guys think? Anyone have any experience with this site, good or bad?

Thanks!

You couldn't PAY ME to use any of those services where you provide your financial information to a website. Heck, I am even nervous about Paypal. I know too many people whose lives were ruined by identitytheft, myself included.

 

[AnnaRaven]

Hubby and I had one of "those" discussions about the finances last night and one of the things mentioned was our need to keep a better budget. So, being the dutiful wife that I am I went right to the web today while on break at work and set up an account with Mint.com. I figured it's free, which is a step in the right direction right off the bat, and it'll help me to see what's going on with my money and our bills.

When I proudly told aforementioned hubby about my actions, he made noises about it being unsafe, what with passwords and bank account information being listed.

What you do you guys think? Anyone have any experience with this site, good or bad?

Thanks!

Mint.com uses the same security software for their site as the banks do. We actually have been using it for over a year and are quite happy with it. It's really made a difference for me to find out just how much I'm spending on what categories.

 

[AnnaRaven]

Is that a very hard budget system to use. It seems like most of the systems are based on having enough money in the bank to start with to just pay your bills and keep track of your spending. I have a hard time using budget systems. I tried YNAB and it didn't work out real well. I went to the web sight and I couldn't find anything that really described the system. I was hesitant to push the get started button.

It actually is pretty easy. What you do is, you get the information from your bank of your transactions, then you label the transactions. So if you do a lot of cash, you can also keeep a "cash" account where you label the spending... that's harder for me because I always forget to record what I spent cash on.

It's a lot easier to use if you use a debit card for buying stuff - then you see something like:

Jan 4 Safeway groceries $154.23

So you have the date, the vendor where you purchased, the label (groceries or car insurance or whatever) and the amount.

Then you can look at trends to see what kind of categories you're spending the most on. And you can set up budgets so it alerts you if you're spending more on a category than you wanted to.

I've found it really useful - DH and I can track our spending without pain.

 

[Dunkopf]

I called my bank and talked to their on call internet banking expert. They said a lot of their clients use it. So I signed up. I haven't had time to get it all set up yet. I have destroyed all the credit cards and I am making changes around here. what you described sounds good. YNAB categorized stuff but it was in general categories. This sounds more specific.