Budget
When it comes to managing my money, I’ve been through various phases. I tried purchasing a budget book to record our daily expenses with the idea that I would diligently record our expenses in it every night – until Mr. Procrastinator caught up with me and the receipts started piling up and my bedside drawer became the filing cabinet for all my receipts. I then experimented with online tools – Excel being the simplest no-nonsense solution. It definitely automated the process to some extent but still required me to collect receipts until I could find the time to record them in my worksheet.
I’ve now been playing with Mint.com. It’s my latest tool of choice and hopefully one that I’m going to stick with for long. It automatically retrieves your expense items from your bank accounts including your credit card purchases and categorizes them so you can easily track where your spending those hard-earned greens. It makes budgetting a lot of fun with all the cool graphics and charts that you get with it. The web site has a fabulous Web 2.0ish design which makes it a truly enjoyable experience. Plus it recommends money saving tips, compares interest rates and offers you more competitive deals for making the most out of your investment.
I know what you’re thinking – security ! Mint’s web site claims that they don’t store any usernames and passwords plus they test their systems against hackers and ensure that they meet web security standards.
My verdict : Great tool ! Simple to use ! Love it !
