Mint.com: The Latest Financial Tool

Being a shopaholic and not being very financial-minded has never been a good combination.  While I understand the concept of saving money and creating a budget for yourself, it’s just never been something that I’ve been successful at.  I never understood stocks, interest rates, debts, net worth, anything finance-y beyond how much money I have in my bank account and how much an item costs.  But thanks to a website that I’ve discovered, that’s all beginning to change. 

Mint.com is a website that enables you to get a good sense of where you finances are very quickly and for free.  Mint organizes and categorizes your spending so that you can see where all of your money goes and where you need to save money.  Mint lets you link all of your banks accounts and expenses (loans, stocks, etc.) so that you can see all of the money coming in and going out of your accounts all in one place, and see your net worth.  It brings things into a clean and clear reality with your money, that is easy to understand, even for non-money-minded people like me.

What’s even more helpful about the site is that it enables you to create a monthly budget for yourself that you can categorize down to food, gas, etc.  This has been especially helpful for me since I’ve joined the site because not only can I limit my spending, but I can also see visually where my money goes (food, movies, etc).  

But one of my favorite aspects of the site is the goals section.  Within the site, there is a section where you can create long-term goals for yourself.  Here you can create goals such as pay off credit card debt, save for retirement, save for a new car, save for travel, pay off loans, or you can create a custom goal.  I love this section because all of the things that I want to do, I can finally begin budgeting for and seeing realistically how long it will take for me to save up money for.  It was definitely an eye opener about my financial goals and what I need to be doing when it comes to my finances.

Overall, this is an amazing site.  If you’ve never checked it out, then I highly recommend you do so.  Especially if you’re one of those people who needs assistance with organizing your finances- and don’t worry, there’s nothing shameful about that.  I know I certainly am one of those people.