Track Every Dime, Effortlessly
Kelly McMenamin | Thursday, February 25, 2010 
I've finally found a way to track my spending. Almost every dime for free at mint.com. You might wonder why this matters and I can't believe I'm about to admit this (Katie will read it and say, "Oh my god, what the frak is wrong with you?? Why would you have wasted your time on earth doing this??") I used to collect all of my receipts (seriously, gum purchases) and at year end tally them up per category to know how I spent my money and see where I needed to cut back. It was SUCH a pain in the arse. Then my now-husband told me that if I got an Amex Gold card, they'd do a year-end summary for me. Really!? Boom. I started putting everything on my Amex and dropped my year-end misery ritual.
Only problem was that I never did get that statement. It's listed as one of the card's benefits but perhaps the fine print is that I need to request it? Who knows and I no longer care because mint.com exists and it's even better. They download and categorize your balances and transactions automatically every day— making it effortless to see graphs of your spending, income, balances, and net worth. For free. And their security is the same level as that of online banking. Smarts, see their explanation here. Plus, I did some web surfing research to ensure what they said was true.
This site produces an end result that is great for all and makes managing your money super easy (all in one spot). But, it's going to be easiest for Classics, Organic Structures and Smart Structures to actually sign up and get it working for you. Funs, Organic Freedoms and Smart Freedoms will take a little longer as it does take awhile to get it all set-up.
Oh and even though I've delegated my year-end receipt ritual to mint.com ... I still keep most of my receipts as a precaution. One never knows whether the IRS will knock at your door. And my motto is always keep stuff to defend yourself against (in the words of my Fun sister-in-law) "The Man."
Reader Comments (2)
ok, so I checked it out and am going to give it a shot for a couple of months. I already keep my budget on a spreadsheet on google docs, but this thing gets information from my actual accounts, although I'm not so crazy about giving it access.
also, I don't think I correctly filled out the budget on the Mint website. it's a little confusing.