Mint.com starts keeping an eye on your budget

Mint.com is the premiere web-based money management solution available Tuesday. The site pulls transaction information from your various financial accounts and presents the data in a beautiful, easily digestible format. CEO Aaron Patzer boasts that 50 percent of Mint's users have used the service to stick to a budget for the first time in their lives. Hoping to raise that number even more, its latest update, available now, focuses on making it easier for users to control their spending with advanced budgeting tools.

While Mint already had some budgeting features before the new update, it was mostly simplistic and offered little in the way of customization options. Features found in this update include the ability to set up and manage specific budgets for categories of purchases, monitor the overall effects of budget changes, budget for specific expenses (such as taxes), and track all of these budgets in real time. Users are now also able to distinguish between personal and business accounts to help separate their associated expenses. Finally, in typical Mint fashion, it has added a great looking graph visualization of your net income, broken down by month.

Mint's new net income visualization.

(Credit: Mint)

With this update, Mint is also pushing its users to transfer their dormant 401k accounts in to rollover IRAs through its "Ways to Save" feature, claiming that the action will result in an additional $65,000 in savings (on average) when retirement rolls around. While Mint's intent with Ways to Save appears to be genuine, be sure to properly evaluate and investigate these offers before signing up. Mint's main revenue stream comes from affiliate fees garnered from its users signing up for these offers.

These new features are certainly a welcome addition to Mint's already strong offering. Bringing responsible money management to users is an admirable goal, especially in this economy. Mint's new budgeting features should help to show even more people the way.

Mint's new budgeting feature allows users to break down expenses by category.

(Credit: Mint)

[Kev-LG]

All these new features, but still no word of a UK release date? Come on Mint, I'm broke!

[4score20]

This service is intriguing to me so I went to find out more about them, I even checked out a bunch of videos about them on YouTube (hey, why are comments disabled on all of them?). Anyway, they seem to offer a good, secure service. I just need to work up the courage to hand over my online banking credentials to them.* ;)

*probably won't.

[JoeNYC]

If only they'd offer an integrated bill pay service. I tried it out but found the site mostly useless without the bill pay.

[David_Riley]

"Kev-LG" Mint may not have released a UK version yet but it looks like someone else has. I have signed up for www.moneydashboard.com which seems to offer as much as Mint and more. I believe it is due to go live shortly.
hope this helps!

[StrandsLucia]

moneyStrands.com is another option. We have about 44 various currencies we support and the option to manually import data in addition to auto linking your accounts.

[steel36]

I'm tired of seeing all of this Mint.com hype. I signed on with them 6 months ago and they still haven't added my bank, despite my and the bank I.T. guy's best efforts. It's like when cell phone companies use to call you up years ago to get you to sign up only to learn that they didn't offer service in your area. They need to do their homework.

[aterianus]

Just tried it for the first time and it's great! Even brought in my Citi Rewards cards which Quicken online was unable to do correctly.

[CylonCheese]

I've used Mint.com for the last year and it is outstanding! It is not meant to replace the online banking or bill paying you already have with your bank. It is a tool to track your finances and spending. My wife and I can setup spending categories to the finest detail you choose and see month to month EXACTLY where the money goes. We also use the budget tool and spending alerts, works great. Any improvements they are adding is just a bonus. Oh yeah... and did someone forget to mention it's free?!? Thanks Mint.com!

[jacobposey]

I've been using Mint now for just over a year. For a free service, it is really good. I like the fact that I can have all my accounts in one place. I have my checking, savings, credit cards, investment accounts, and loan account such as mortgages and car payments all under one roof. My only gripe is it is still a bit buggy. I've had transactions disappear, sometimes it does not connect to my accounts, and the budgeting tool confuses me. For example, if I set a budget for the shopping category and also the books sub category under shopping, I think the service is double counting my book purchases in the budget. I've look at other services, and have been underwhelmed by them. I'll stick with Mint for a little while longer until the bugs drive me nuts.

[Krigh]

I will ask the same question that I did for Quicken Online: How much do you trust an organization that cannot be held accountable if your bank information get's into the wrong hands? In days when your bank accounts can be drained and credit cards maxed out (I have had friends this has happened to), wouldn't you rather limit the people that have access (ie the ones that can be held accountable) to you and your bank?

If they had a desktop version so that the login info resides on my machine for me to protect (with updates as needed), I would be all for it. But not an online and especially free version.

[CylonCheese]

I don't think the info on your desktop is any more secure than it is on a reputable website. As long as your computer is connected to the internet you are at risk. Mint.com and bank websites in general most likely have more security, encryption, virus & malware protection and resources (money) than you and your desktop.

[jaguar717]

Well the relevant question would be whether their data is encrypted (it should be). If so, your data is as secure there as it is at your bank--someone could drive a truck through their server farm and cart away every hard drive, and it wouldn't matter in the slightest.

If they do pass on bank info that's used to steal from you, why wouldn't they be just as liable as if your bank did it, or Quicken?

As far as your credit cards go, all the major ones cover you against unauthorized charges. Even if you're on some ghetto card for people who aren't creditworthy, it's probably like a $50 deductible if they even still do that.

[jbcahill]

Until Mint.com starts supporting cash accounts, I think their service is pretty much worthless (to me anyway). Not everyone lives on credit cards and loans.

[telno]

I gave Mint.com a look-see right after reading this review, and I love it !! I have been without MSN Money software for a couple years, but this is so much more intuitive to use and quick to accomplish my goals. (I should say I even work for Microsoft)... I set up all my accounts very quickly and immediately had a nice heads-up view of my financial life. The charts are great and they help me learn about my spending habits and the budgeting view was already recommending saving strategies for me.

I have to agree with another commenter that the "cash spending" scenario needs some support. Currently I can split my ATM withdrawals amongst various expense categories, but there's no way to manually enter cash transactions otherwise.

At first I was skeptical that a web based tool could be this feature rich and seamless - I was definitely wrong.

When will they start charging us for this service I wonder?