10 Reasons Why I Love Mint!

Whew hew! I finally get to deliver on my promise to post about my new love affair with Mint, an online financial management tool. Although I have only been a user for a couple of weeks, I have discovered so many great features. Here are 10 reasons why I absolutely love this tool:

1. Cost - It's free!


2. Comprehensive - I can manage all of my accounts in one place, real time. No more logging into several accounts.


3. Ease of Use - Mint does all of the bookkeeping! The program does a really good job at classifying the income and expenses. If they get it wrong, not only can you correct it, but you can tell Mint how to classify transactions to/from that payee/payor going forward.


4. Flexibility - Unlike other free online financial management tools, Mint allows you the capability of splitting transactions. For example, let's say you spent $100 at Wal-Mart, $60 on groceries, $25 on home supplies and $15 on prescriptions. You can split the transactions up into the appropriate categories!


5. Usefulness of Information - Mint provides wonderful up to the minute analytics of your financial picture. Each week a financial summary is sent to your inbox. Not only is the info useful but it's also very easy to read.


6. Communication - Mint has an awesome system that alerts you of unusual activity, low balances, upcoming bills and even rate increases on your credit card (click here for my personal story).


7. Savings Tips - Apparently Mint uses some highly sophisticated search algorithm that searches through thousands of offers to find the best deals on everything from bank accounts to credit cards, to service providers for phones, internet, cable and more. As if this is not enough, Mint makes suggestions based on your individual spending pattern so the tips are unique to your situation.


8. Visual Appearance - Yes, Mint's website is easy on the eyes. It is not laced with advertisements or annoying pop-ups. Navigating the website could not be easier.


9. Accessibility - You can logon to Mint anytime, anywhere, from any computer. All you need is the e-mail address you registered with and your password.


10. Security - Mint provides bank level data security, which has been validated by industry leaders VeriSign and TRUSTe (btw...this feature may not mean much to the masses but as a former IT auditor, I threw it in kind of as an ode to a career that I'm happy to have left;-).

Okay, I gave you 10 reasons but trust me, this is not an all inclusive list. I sincerely urge you to give Mint a try. If you are already using Mint, I'd love to hear about your experience.