Mint.com Review: Personal Finance Manager
I signed up for Mint.com, a personal finance manager, and I thought I’d post my reactions here. First, let’s walk through the process. You fill in your email address and passwords, and then almost immediately begin filling in sign-in information for the online banking service you use. The GUI is fast and intuitive:
Within minutes, Mint has pulled the most recent 132 transaction from four credit cards, a checking account, and paypal. They support hundreds of different accounts, from banking checking and savings, credit cards, macys and other store cards, as well as investment accounts. In the near future, they will support student loan accounts as well!
Yes, this is scary, but Mint claims they can keep you safe by not storing your banking login information themselves:
We ask for your online banking user name and passwords, but we do not see or store that information. That means no one at Mint, and no potential hackers of Mint.com, can access your banking credentials. Your online banking credentials are stored only with these institutions enabling Mint to automatically and securely update your transactions and saving you from updating, syncing or uploading financial information manually. All communication between Mint and its online financial service providers is encrypted using 128–bit SSL encryption, the financial industry standard for data protection.
The next step is to classify and review your transactions. Mint lets you put them in buckets–and naturally it will get a few wrong to start with–but you can set up rules to classify new transactions how you like. For example, I set one that sets any cheques with the amount of my rent to go into the rent bucket:
By doing this, you let them do some analysis on your spending or earning trends. Note, the trends feature appears to update daily, not in real time, so if you classify a bunch of transactions, it won’t update the trends page with your new categorization for some time. This is unfortunate, but probably necessary. This lets them make, say, a graph of your spending v.s. the average NY spender:
I guess I need to spend more money at Amazon and Best Buy to fit in these days. Lastly, there is their “ways to save” page, which is basically targeted affiliate ads with various banks. This is their revenue stream–getting you to sign up for new credit cards and open new accounts–so don’t trust anything it says:
The verdict? I love it, and I think it’s only going to get better. This is the new world, and services like Mint can make our lives infinitely easier! Please share your opinions about Mint.com, if you’ve ever experienced fraud after signing up, etc, below.
Update: There are some good reviews out there, too. PC Magazine says “Mint.com is a useful, intelligent, and free financial Web service that’s simple to set up and tracks your monetary life with little intervention on your part,” while Viewpoints has a single review which calls it “One of the best free money trackers on the Internet” and Girls Just Wanna Have Funds praises it for costing $50 less than MS Money.
| This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 8:44 pm and is tagged with personal finance manager, financial service providers, store cards, loan accounts, banking service, investment accounts, categorization, buckets, ssl encryption, cheques, checking account, mint, credentials, credit cards, financial information, student loan, passwords, hackers, real time, institutions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback. |
34 Responses to “Mint.com Review: Personal Finance Manager”
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I don’t understand how they can get updated information from your banks without storing that data. For that matter, giving away your login credentials is probably a violation of the terms of use for most banks (just like it is for e-mail services but other sites ask for them).
They use a service called Yodlee which does the access. You can google it for more info!
After reading your review, I figured I’d try it out… I am quite impressed with the way it generated my expense report. For someone that uses their debit card for everything, Mint will help you find where you are spending to much! Great review Elliot.
So, it looks like Yodlee stores the data then? I’m still not sure I like the idea of someone else having my banking login information, but maybe I’m just paranoid.
Side note – you should consider getting the subscribe to comments plugin [1] for wordpress. Otherwise I have to remember to come back and see if you replied to my comment, which is never a safe bet.
[1] http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/
Finally looked at mint myself, and wow. I think I’d be willing to pay money for the service it provides.
Like Shown i don’t feel safe to give my bankin information. I just try Mint and it’s not really simple to use. So now i have tried 3 others websites: Wesabe.com ; sbudget.com and MyBudget-online.com
Wesabe and MyBudget-online.com are more friendly for everybody.
I tried to setup an account at mint.com but I found out that citibank and ING did not support the mint site/ software. what to do, what to do?…. could someone suggest another software that is better?
mint does support ing, you just have to set it up after 8pm EST and before 8am EST, ing doesn’t want them access to slow down the site for others, I think since it is an online only bank (for the most part). I’m looking into getting my citi bank account to work, i think you can, but i’ll let you know what i figure out
Pat, I have mint and it works fine with my ING account, which includes two saving accounts and an ING Electric Orange account.
I am really impressed with Mint.com. I signed up today, and within just 20 minutes, I had all my transactions categorized and could easily see where all my money was going… I highly suggest this service, its is SUPERIOR to everything else I have tried!!!!!
Go mint.com!
MINT is a great system, but the ways to save page doesn’t allow one to enter their technical info in regards to their credit card accounts (i.e. interest rates/ reward point structure, etc.)
I have used 6 different versions of Quicken dating back to mid-1990 and I know prefer Mint to anything Quicken has to offer.
First of all, Quicken when installed puts a bunch of **** you don’t want on your computer…and Quicken is now really slow. And then they try to sell you other software programs. Quicken has really gotten away from their roots.
On the other hand, Mint is easy to use and if you want a basic tool for seeing where your money is going, that is free! and that can be used on any computer because its a website — then I highly recommend it.
This type of software is the future and you can see why the likes of Google has Microsoft shaking in their boots — no need for software loaded on your hard drive!
support hundreds of different accounts, from banking checking and savings, credit cards, macys and other store cards, as well as investment accounts.
Shawn- Like you, I don't feel safe giving that info out. But I LOVE what mint could do and would definitely pay for the service if I felt that it was safe. What did you decide to do?
Quite an informative post about money management. another such helpful post I have read at http://www.manageme7.com/blog/money-management/....
I am using manageME both at business and home to keep a track on day to day income and expenditure. The best thing I love about manageME is its features and its easy usability. Anyone from a grandson to grandpa can use it without any assistance and difficulty.
Last year,I have been to my brother’s place and I found that He was using mint for managing his funds.
I was delighted, as like manageMe, mint is also helpful and easy to use.
From then I and my brother always get into fight boasting about manageME and mint.
[...] am not the first person to write a review for the financial software service Mint.com. Nor will I be the last. However, [...]
Of the online budget management tools I have tried, I like BudgetToolkit.com the best. No bank account info is required for electronic banking (you can upload the info yourself). Takes an extra step but I don’t feel comfortable giving out my checking account information. I also like being able to make notations on my transactions (eg. Check #4002 in my banking statement doesn’t mean very much to me). Budgettoolkit.com gives me that ability.
My wife set up mint.com. It proceeded to trigger fraud alerts at my bank when it tried to log in. Online accounts locked, all automated bill payments disabled and wiped out. Hours and hours on the phone with my bank. Still trying to clean up the mess. Use this yodlee and mint junk with caution.
don’t give your credentials, nor back account, nor emails accounts,(email accounts are used to retrieve all other passwords), don’t even use password managers, don’t even type your passwords directly to web pages, (store in pendrive with extra fake numbers, delete numbers copy and paste to web pages, then close file without save to keep fake numbers, this is to avoid keyloggers), don’t let pages to store passwords, ask your bank if they can charge you automatically, so you use the online account the less as possible, or even disable online transactions, use it to review only, block you credit cards against unauthorized transactions or amounts, etc etc etc… this is just a brief resume, don’t think this is paranoia,it’s actually to little compared on what you really should do to be really web safe.
I don’t recommend any software that use your credentials in any way, this includes any online banking web page too.
Mint Pros and Cons
Pros:
Online management of all my financial data, able to combine all of my financial data into one online place which is password protected.
I found mint very usable to the point that I entered all of my financial information into it,
To simplify my life I use only one credit card. For some reason Mint is sometimes unable to update my credit card accounts.
It showed no updates from JUNE 15TH TO JULY 2. So I did what anybody else would do. I reset the credit card account
What Mint did was that it wiped out my six months of painful entry of each data and expenditure that I did when I reset the credit card. It only goes back a month to retrieve the old data, not back to 6 months.
This is totally absurd.
Unlike Quicken their is no option to back up your work.
Just for that reason I would stay away.
As per my knowledge some of the sites displaying only last 30 days or 60 days old transactions and Yodlee agents are scrapping from the sites and saving in the database. So if you reset the account automatically you lost your old transactions. Instead of that option try to identify the issue of why the account is not updated?.Mint is not showing the error clearly, but if you use yodlee.com it will show the error code and further action.
I am stunned that nobody has even mentioned the scariest part of using mint.com – you have to grant them Power of Attorney!!!
For purposes of this Agreement and solely to provide the Account Information to you as part of the Service, you grant Mint a limited power of attorney, and appoint Mint as your attorney-in-fact and agent, to access third party sites, retrieve and use your information with the full power and authority to do and perform each thing necessary in connection with such activities, as you could do in person. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT WHEN MINT IS ACCESSING AND RETRIEVING ACCOUNT INFORMATION FROM THIRD PARTY SITES, MINT IS ACTING AS YOUR AGENT, AND NOT AS THE AGENT OF OR ON BEHALF OF THE THIRD PARTY. You understand and agree that the Service is not sponsored or endorsed by any third parties accessible through the Service.
Please read the legal obligation you are assuming by signing up. It is true! By signing up you are giving them “power of attorney”.
Here is the definition of “Power of Attorney”:
A legal document giving one person (called an “agent” or “attorney-in-fact”) the power to act for another person (the principal). The agent can have broad legal authority or limited authority to make legal decisions about the principal’s property and finance. The power of attorney is frequently used in the event of a principal’s illness or disability, or when the principal can’t be present to sign necessary legal documents for financial transactions.
Took a look at mint. I rather use MS Money (don’t allow MS Money to connect to the internet after it’s been activated and you’ll be fine).
For a strictly non business personal account, exactly why does catagorizing income and outgo help? I quit long ago. The only statistic that is meaningful is whether inflow exceeds outflow as measured by comparing balances across time. So long as balances are steadily increasing, even modestly, I do not really care where the money is spent. If you know you need to spend less, you very likely know where to quit spending. I think managing money closely to that detail is a source of anxiety and interferes with enjoying it. My wife and I rarely ever discuss money, let alone argue over it. I do not care what she paid for something she wanted (and vice versa) so long as the important statistic of a positive cash flow is satisfied. Counting beans is no fun but been there.
This is mostly true, but some (most?) people (myself) aren’t self-aware of where they spend. So if they want to cut back, Mint gives them a great starting place by listing detailed inflows and outflows.
What if you found you spent $200/mo on Starbucks? Could you cut back? Maybe!
Yodlee also giving the same functionality more than mint thro http://www.yodlee.com , the name of the application is MoneyCenter. Yodlee using encrypted username and passwords, so no worry abt security.Going to launch latest version with lot of new functionality. Mint now supporting INGDirect also, This site is MultiFactorAuthentication site. You need to give answer for the security questions. Mint just now supporting this functionality. So try with Yodlee.com
I read most posts…
I downloaded the app for my iphone when I found mint.com…
but…before I signed up completely…or gave any bank info…I read the part of the terms and policies before doing so. I didn’t like the part of limited Power Of Attorney. Acting as an agent on my behalf.
I didn’t sign up…I then realized, its my life, my fincances, and my problems in spending. It was time to take control of it and not let it control me. This world is so “lets make it easy”, well…why make it hard in the first place and then depend on someone or something else to get me out of my irresponsibile choices.
This software sounds great!!! But it won’t cause me to make much better choices with my $.
What needs to be understood is; why am I making poor choices to begin with and fix that problem, then the rest will correct itself.
US Citizens always live life by putting bandaids on every problem, from healthcare to personal fincance/credit. We need to take more responsibility in our lives and understand whats responsible for the issue before you feel the need to bandaid it.
Sorry for the rant, but its so frustrating when I don’t do what I know I need to. I at least feel I made the right choice ‘for me’ by not signing up this time around. Its not the fault of, but if my parents would have been more proactive in teaching me how money worked as a kid, it would have helped. I have to take responsibility for it now and for my kids. I will now focus more on them and teaching them $ principals…guess this was a good thing that came along. Thanks mint.com, my kids will now be wiser so they may not have to use your services.
) (this is in no way meant to be offensive to readers who use or would like to use the service. This is only a personal opinion and choice, but something for those reading to think about!) Best Wishes!
Ok for starters I found Mint very easy to set up and I personally enjoy being able to check all my accounts using one web page vice going to 3 or 4 just for the normal ones. As for everyone who is scared about the POA and your passwords. if you make it a habit to check on your stuff daily you will notice a charge you didnt make and can then freeze that account for fraud with very little if any responsibility on your part. As for the POA it is only limited which is limited to allowing them to access your accounts not transfer money and make online purchases.
No check register.
Are people thinking only of the past?
That property tax check you have to write in December for 5 grand; don’t you want to see how that will affect your balance in the future?
Don’t you want a check register to see if you can add an extra check to your mortgage each month?
I have used MINT for over a year now, and really like it. I like the budgeting info, the graphs, investment tracking, etc. I had trouble with ING for a while, but finally got that resolved. I switched to MINT from Full View by Fidelity, when I was kicked off because I was no longer a customer. I like free, and MINT is the best one. I have checked PageOnce, Wasabe, Yodlee and a couple more but haven’t found one as good yet.