Mint Has Not Just Been A Herb For A While Now...

So you know how a lot of girls blog about their really cute crafts or delicious recipes? I've been pondering what I can give back to the blogosphere lately and it's not my lack of crafting abilities or cooking expertise... nor would my attempts to sew or cook healthy entertain anyone. But I do know a bit about managing the family's finances and so I decided... why not blog a bit about that? This way.. I have it for my kids in the future and along the way, if someone actually heeds some of my financial advice... hip hip hooray.

So today.. I want to promote Mint.com. If you haven’t already heard of mint.com, you are in for an herbal treatment! This fast growing website is the premiere place to consolidate all of your finances and provide you with a real time analysis on your actual cash flow (assets minus liabilities... or what you have in cash minus what you owe in credit card bills, loans, etc.). But wait, it doesn’t stop there (do I sound like an as seen on television infomercial?... well, it’s that great my friends), it also categorizes your transactions, makes suggestions for further savings based on your spending trends and allows you to set and monitor monthly budgets. And for the super anal retentive and slightly obsessive compulsive like myself, you can export all of your transactions into an excel worksheet and further sort, analyze and budget for the future (just categorize it all in Mint before exporting).

The website is simple and secure and requires a no fee registration in order to get started. (Found this blog post with pictures and step by step Mint preview if you're curious) The only thing that will hold you back is all your accounts be it loans, a checking account or savings, must already have an online account registered with a username and password that you can recall (otherwise, say hello to the click on forgot my password and wait for that automatic e-mail to come through, or spend some time registering, trust me, it’s worth the time investment).

On a side note, one tip I learned when I began setting up all my accounts was to keep my password simple yet complex – simple being something I could easily remember, made complicated with some caps locks, numbers and a different prefix or suffix for every single password you own (I have found that men tend to use the same password EVERYWHERE... remember when I mentioned it here?), thereby allowing yourself security in case one password does get hacked.

Know your trends people. Do you know how much you spend a month on gas, groceries and dining out? What are your largest monthly expenses? For us, it's rent... followed by groceries and then gas and I can also tell you our groceries come in around $350-400 and gas is roughly $250 (before the van... yes, I am a mini-van mom now.. but I have not figured out that trend as it's only been a month so far). I know if we're out of town visiting family, that we will save and have more room to spend on dining out or entertainment. I also know the impact of residency interviews (estimated at around $10K) will dip into our savings a bit but that if we cut back on some of the more variable expenses (like dining out, shopping and fun baby stuff that's want, not need...), our fixed costs won't hurt as much.

It's our family goal to make it to 10-20-70 and always pay off our consumer debt (think credit card bills) in full (because those finance charges will get you!) With that said, we will always tithe 10%, try to save 20% and hopefully only spend 70%. We might not be able to make it there this year or for a few more years... but we're trying and along the way, Mint is helping us.

I'm glad Mint isn't just an herb, but insight into our financial well-being. Makes fiscal sense to me!