According to the site
USA.gov, paying off debt and saving money are No. 7 and No. 11, respectively, on the list of most popular New Year's resolutions. The question, however, is how can the average person learn to do a better job managing money?
One way is to more closely monitor your finances, and that's where account aggregation comes in. The term refers to
Web 2.0 applications that display credit card information, 401(k) accounts, loan status, savings account balances, monthly expenses, and so forth -- all at the same time.
Account aggregation makes staying on top of your money easier, so you'll know when you've strayed from your financial objectives and by how much.
There are several aggregators to choose from, such as
Yodlee,
Wesabe, and
Quicken Online, but
Mint, which was launched in September 2007 and has over 1.7 million users, is the current standout. The free, cloud-based service provides an engaging, user-friendly interface, which is largely responsible for its success.
“More than 90% of our users say the tool has changed their spending and savings habits,” says
Aaron Patzer, Mint's youthful CEO and founder, “and more than half say it led them to set a budget for the first time in their lives.”
The service reportedly uses back-end technology licensed from Yodlee to securely connect to more than 8,000 financial institutions (banks, credit card companies, brokerages, credit unions, etc.), representing over half of all FDIC-insured institutions in the U.S.
To get started, you simply create an online account and provide minimal logon information for your financial accounts. The security employed is used throughout online banking, so the information divulged does not expose you to inordinate risk. Mint then automatically assigns categories to the transactions and conducts an ongoing analysis.
Subsequent visits provide a dashboard of your finances, easy-to-read graphical reports, SMS alerts, helpful blog, net worth calculation, and money-saving tips. Some of the tips, such as switching to a credit card that charges lower interest or moving your IRA to another brokerage, are how Mint makes money.
The company claims you’re anonymous and protected by bank-level security on Mint.com. You don't have to supply your name, address, social security number or account numbers. Furthermore, you can’t transfer money. In fact, the site provides automatic email and SMS alerts for any suspicious activity.
One obstacle to using Mint, however, is whether all your accounts will work with its automated logon system, because some won't. Especially troublesome are systems that use randomly-selected security questions or a
CAPTCHA challenge.
Nevertheless, the site is all about figuring out what's happening with your money, comparing your expenses and shopping habits with others similarly situated, curtailing wasteful spending and learning how to start saving.
Intuit, Inc., a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small/mid-sized businesses, financial institutions, consumers and accounting professionals, whose flagship products include
QuickBooks,
Quicken and
TurboTax, acquired Mint last November for $170 million.
Since Mint is a direct competitor of
Quicken Online, many thought Intuit would do away with the service once the deal was complete, but now it appears
Quicken Online will be the one to go. Intuit recently announced that all
Quicken Online accounts will be moved to Mint in 2010.
Sources say this decision is based on the fact that
Quicken Online only has less than 100,000 individual users logging on each month, whereas Mint reportedly has over seven times that number.
Mint has been reviewed favorably by numerous financial publications, has won several prestigious
awards, and is generally regarded as one of the best free sites on the Internet.
Managing your money can sometimes be complicated and intimidating. Mint is neither, so it's definitely worth a look. For more information, visit
Mint.com.
