Minty fresh

I've always been good with my money and accounting - ironically though I've never balanced a check book in my life. Ever since I've had my first bank account and my first credit card, I've been using some sort of computer software to keep track of my personal finances. Each year, like many other people, one of my new years resolutions is to manage my personal finances better. I start off extremely well and do well through the first half of the year after which I gradually start procrastinating. I've realized that part of the problem is the software I've been using. Microsoft Money does a really good job helping you set up your accounts in the beginning but fails at automatically syncing up with them. So I end up having to balance my accounts manually on a month-to-month basis - hence the procrastination.

Recently however I heard a lot of hype about Mint.com. In a nutshell, Mint.com is a Web 2.0 portal that allows users to manage their money - for FREE. Well technically its not free because you're giving them access to your accounts and hence a ton of data that they use to run statistics off of. I've been considering using it since October of last year but have been skeptical due to security and privacy reasons. After cautiously reading through both those policies and knowing first-hand some other intelligent people use the site, I finally decided to join the Mint bandwagon - which by the way is 900,000 people deep. So far (been using it for 2 months), I'm fascinated with the user interface of the portal and the way it breaks down my personal finances on a month-to-month basis. It gives me an overview of where my money went during a particular month, what my net worth is, how my investments are doing, how my spending compares to an average person living in the same city as mine, among other things. Overall, I recommend it to anyone who is interested in getting a deeper insight about how they use their money - and in this economy who isn't?

Before I close off, I'll leave you with an intriguing article on what Mint thinks about the U.S. Economy - and they have data to back it up (like I said, nothing in this world is free :) Obviously, their research and investigation represents a very small sampling of the U.S. population - so take it with a grain of salt. Article Link