Think Outside The Box : Get A Free Online Financial Guru

Gretchen Glasscock — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:02:02 +0000

Tough times have arrived. Time to think outside the box.

Do you ever spend more than you should? Let your bank account get too low? Put off budgeting? Forget or delay paying off those high interest credit cards? Who doesn’t?

What we could all use is a a financial planner/ manager who will take care of all those myriad money details for us. But who can afford that? You can. We all can. Because Mint is free.

Mint – Manages Your Money

http://www.mint.com/

“Mint is fresh, intelligent online money management. Not only is Mint free, it saves you money….

With Mint , you can achieve better online financial management in less than five minutes. After that, … Mint money management software does the rest, with virtually no more work required. It automatically pulls together your bank, credit union and credit card data, and provides up–to–date and amazingly accurate views of your financial—life from the big picture to specific details, in a friendly and intuitive way.”

How Does Mint Work ?

Mint connects to more than 5,000 US financial institutions. Your account information is updated daily. Mint automatically categorizes all your purchases, showing you how much you spend on gas, groceries, parking, rent, restaurants, DVD rentals and more, with amazing precision.

Secure: Mint provides bank–level data security and industry–leading identity protection. Its security and privacy have been validated by VeriSign and TRUSTe. Users sign up with nothing more than a valid e-mail address, password, and zip code, then enter login credentials for supported financial institutions. Mint doesn’t store any of these credentials, working instead with Yodlee, a third-party financial aggregation service provider that’s provides similar services for “top” US financial institutions. Mint uses 128-bit SSL encryption to communicate with Yodlee and pull your transaction data. Mint never knows your identity.Their level of security is much the same as Paypal.com, eBay.com, your bank or many of the other online companies to whom you’ve given your financial information.

Mint Is Your Financial Traffic Cop/Watchdog

An advanced alerting system highlights any unusual activity, low balances, unwanted fees and charges, and upcoming bills so you’re in constant contact with your money. Plus, Mint is proactive—alerting you when you are exceeding your personal budget, have a low balance, need to pay a bill, and more.

Mint Is Your Sharp Eyed Accountant Looking for Savings

In addition, Mint goes beyond visibility and analysis providing personalized money–saving and money–making suggestions. Mint provides users an average of $1,000 in savings opportunities during their first session. Mint is constantly working to find you savings. Mint keeps looking for new ways for you to save every day—continuously comparing your needs to product, service and bank offerings most relevant to you. ( Of course, the companies who are making the offers are also financing the program, Mint, so you don’t have to….to you it’s free. Just bear that in mind when you evaluate the offer.)

Mint is Your Always On, Anywhere/anytime access, Free Financial Planner

These are some of the goals Mint can help you with.

Perhaps in some ways we all practice a little avoidance ( perhaps even denial) when it comes to our finances. Do we really want to know how much we spend eating out or whatever our personal indulgences are? Maybe not. Or, at least, maybe not by choice. But a recession is upon us and, for most of us, there is not only the possibility but the real likelihood that the champagne will not be flowing and the airline tickets won’t be raining on our heads. One way or another, we should all be contemplating the recession time strategy of tightening our belts, lowering our expenditures and increasing our savings to ride out this gathering storm. I, for one am going to be trying Mint to see if it can help me achieve some of those those financial goals I’ve procrastinated about. Where else can I get a financial guru I don’t have to pay, feed, meet with or take to an expensive lunch?

If you try Mint, please do write us and share what you think and how it’s working for you. If you have any other online, automated financial guru you’d like to recommend, please do.

AW WebBiz & Social Media Blog » Saving

Think Outside The Box : Get A Free Online Financial Guru

Mint – Manages Your Money

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