Note: I am not using Mint.com, yet. My brother told me about it today and I have not had a chance to sign up.
Mint is a budget and financial planning site. The idea is simple, enter any accounts you would like to track along with your passwords and Mint starts tracking your finances. You can create a budget and Mint automatically tracks purchases and enters them for you.
You are anonymous on Mint in order to add an extra level of security, which was my one concern. I am not completely sold on the idea of giving my account number and password to this site. According to Mint, your information is secure as well as your money.
Mint.com uses bank-level data security verified by Verisign and TrustE. You’re anonymous on Mint.com; you don’t share your name, address, social security number or account numbers. You can save money — but you can’t transfer money — using Mint.com. In fact, with Mint.com’s automatic email and SMS alerts, you can increase your online security by learning of – and acting on — any suspicious activity in any of your accounts more quickly. Learn more about how Mint.com keeps you safe.
I am always looking for ways to simplify my finances and Mint might be an easy way to track everything. There is even an iPhone app, that allows you to check your financial data even if you are away from home. According to the website, it takes about 5 minutes to set up your accounts and start tracking. Once you are set up, Mint will even suggest ways for you to save money!
The best part about Mint is it’s free. I plan on signing up later this week and giving it a trial run. Have you used Mint? If so I’d love to hear your opinion.
I have a Mac and was unable to get Mint to load. I have been using Quicken Online which is also a free service and love it. My college age son is about to move into a house-sharing situation to be closer to school and I helped him set his up today.
Really, I have a Mac too and it loaded fine for me. Perhaps it is a browser issue? Definitely something I need to look into. Thanks for letting me know!
Toni
I have a Mac too using Safari 3.2.3 on OS 10.5.7 and it works fine for me. It was a little tricky with my main bank, but all of the other institutions loaded up surprisingly easy.
I have been using Mint for about a year now- I have had no issue with security, and the site is actually fun to use. You can do things like compare what you spend in a certain catagory, such as gas, compared to other Mint users in your area. I started using Mint about the same time I started the Dave Ramsey program, and it was really nice to have Mint refresh everytime I logged on and watch my credit card bills drop down to zero as I did the Debt Snowball.
I signed up & tried to use it, but it kept refusing to log in to my financial websites. Sometimes it would log in, then 5 minutes later tell me my login info was incorrect. I thought it was pointless to bother using it is it wasn’t going to help me get an accurate financial picture because of these errors
Well I don’t have a Mac, so the above problems haven’t occurred for me.
But we’ve been using Mint for several months now – my husband is the main worker on our finances. But he really likes it. Not only can you track your finances, but you can compare them to others’ expenses in the U.S. You can also set goals for yourself and track how you do in meeting your goals.
Also, regarding safety, there are several awards (on the front page) from prominent magazines.
I signed up for Mint a while back, but haven’t been able to use it because my main bank wouldn’t load, and Mint has issues with ING Direct (as does Quicken Online, I believe). Something about the gazillion security questions on ING trips up these websites. So far, I haven’t had any luck with it.
Alright, Happy are you reading my mind. I had just decided that for the month of August I was going to track everything I bought. I was planning on using just a piece of paper and pen but maybe I’ll give this a whirl, or at least pass on this info to the my finical advisor, aka my husband!!!
Maybe they don’t ask for your name, address, or social security number, but you still have to give them your account numbers and passwords. There are many things I do on the internet where I sacrifice privacy for convenience, but I’m not giving any person or service free access to my bank account information. It’s not hard for a web site to get your name and address from the cookies in your web browser. Be very careful. I know people who swear by this service as well, but I think there are too many potential issues.
First off, I use both mint.com and pearbudget.com. I came across the latter through simplemom back in December and really enjoyed it, however, I decided to try mint.com
After a month, I’ve concluded that I will continue to use both. Neither of them have all the features I want, they each have some I like the other doesn’t have… overall though, I like pearbudget more than mint.
As far as security, from what I can tell, they take it very seriously. If you want to wipe your account and leave, it definitely wipes your account.
I’ve signed up for Mint awhile back and at first wasn’t able to load my credit union but after a few weeks of trying, they corrected the log in and has loaded all 55 of our sub saving accounts. I’ve also included all our credit cards. I don’t use it regularly as we do the Dave Ramsey system via our credit union online services, but I’ve seen that it could be an incredibly useful tool. You can set up budgets, you can comment on every purchase and payment you make, categorize your purchases, get email notifications on when bills are due, tells me if our checking account is getting low on funds, etc. If used properly, it would be a great, safe and secure website to add to any budget minded family.
I LOVE mint, when it works. Right now I’m having a problem that all of my citibank transactions from June did not download. Trying to get that resolved. Annoying. Apparently it’s not uncommon with citibank, for some reason. But when it’s working, it’s fantastic for me. My husband is in IT and works a lot with security features and he’s not worried, so neither am I.
We have been using a google spreadsheet to keep track of our spending and I hate it. It takes up so much time. I didn’t know there was a website like mint.com. Thanks for sharing!
My wife and I use Mint.com and have really liked it thus far.
~Luke
I know its supposed secure, but when it was asking me for all those account numbers I got scared and stopped. I know it safe. But still, I have an in depth spread sheet on my computer for our budget and it works fine for me. Sure sometimes I have to look up how to program something, but luckily my husband knows a bit about programming within the Microsoft Office suite and he can write us macros to do stuff.
Interesting…. I do worry about sending my banking info over the interweb… but maybe I am too anxious/paranoid?
I may try it, if I can get over the anxiety issue! lol
I’ve used mint since it came out (I even got a tshirt as an early opter!), and I love it. We use it on four different computers (2 Windows 7s, 1 Windows Vista & 1 Mac Leopard, firefox or google chome on all of them) + my ipod touch, and they all work great! I’ve never had a problem with security. Occasionally the banks will do something weird and you’ll have to relogin, but that would happen anyway. Mint has a lot of support from lots of people who know more about web security than I do, which i’m sure you can find by googling it.
I love it. I’m a very visual person, so i love the graphs & charts & having everything listed plainly, cash to debt ratios and so forth (we’re trying to climb out of debt). It also has a nice budgeting option & lets you know when, say, you go over your “entertainment” budget for the month or if you start to approach a credit limit (if anyone is in such a situation)
I’d definitely reccomend it to anyone! =)
Their blog is neat to subscribe to as well.
I use Mint and I find it amazing. I also use an Excel spreadsheet to trackcredit cards and that works well also. I think this is a secure site that is really there to help.
We use MS Money. Unfortunately Microsoft has decided that with so many sites out there like Mint.com, they are no longer going to support Money. So eventually I will have to find something else. I really love using Money and don’t want to have to change… so I look forward to hearing your review of Mint.
Ok, so I tried it, and kept getting errors when I went to put my accounts on from both my banks. I tried it in both IE and Mozilla. I have a laptop, not a mac…..
Hi!I have been using Mint since starting the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover. We are trying to keep track of everything on there, but often times our credit card websites are down, or the information from our checking account is not up to date. I like the layout and format of the site, but for some reason it doesn’t work well with the other sites it links up to. Thanks!