Anyone use Mint.com for finances?
I just signed up the other day, and it's pretty slick. Does anyone else have any experience with it?
Free Personal Finance Software, Online Money Management, Budget Planner and Financial Planning | Mint.com
Free Personal Finance Software, Online Money Management, Budget Planner and Financial Planning | Mint.com
Comments
1. I can update my stuff whenever I want even after I just did a transaction. Mint.com only updates when things 'clear' in your account.
2. I like too keep my information to myself, having my valuable information on someone elses database worries me.. especially when that database has been reported in Nigeria.
3. IMO if your too lazy to do your own fiances and math then your already behind in the game we call Financial Stability.
That's just how I see things,
Mint does look very slick.. I had a web class that touched on it's type of coding.
-Larry Ellison, CEO, Oracle
Studying: SCJA
Occupation: Information Systems Technician
I've been keeping track of spending through Quicken 2008, if I need to access it remotely I could I suppose but I really don't need access on the go. I just use it once a week or so to see where my money is going and look for bad trends and help plan what to pay off.
I did, but they have to keep your bank login credentials stored somehow (encrypted obviously) in order to pull in transaction data. And in order to pull that data they would need to be able to decrypt those credentials in order to pass it to to your banking institute unless I'm mistaken on how they operate. It sounds to me like they update your Mint.com account regularly, yet claim they do not see or store your banking institute usernames and passwords.
I'm sure however they do it that it is very secure, but I just don't care to provide any 3rd party that information.
Even so I use Mint, I doubt many people are going to go though the trouble to steal the small amount of money I keep in the bank or my poor credit score.
Seriously, though, I'm not as inherently concerned as some about the security-aspects of sites like these or transmitting my credentials across the wire. I do a little research, make sure it's not a scam to begin with, (like my bank,) and I'm good. As long as I keep myself somewhat informed of how these companies are doing, and make sure that I'm kept up to date on when they've been compromised, (like Visa and MasterCard have been, but they're quick to get on it and let me know that my money's bee messed with,) then it's all good. In the end, they're still liable for my information, and a little bit of foresight goes a long way to perpetuate my laziness.
*(So. . . lazy. . . can't. . . go on. C'mon, I'm in IT and I'm a college student. You don't expect me to do real work, do you?!?)
Free Microsoft Training: Microsoft Learn
Free PowerShell Resources: Top PowerShell Blogs
Free DevOps/Azure Resources: Visual Studio Dev Essentials
Let it never be said that I didn't do the very least I could do.
I use a combo of hand-entry & transaction download (from credit card/bank websites) into Money, and it seems to work well. I've been using Money for years now and I can't tell you how much time and aggravation is saves me over doing it ALL in Excel by hand.
Next Up: Security+, 291?
Enrolled in Masters program: CS 2011 expected completion
What is somebody going to do with your bank login information? Are they going to transfer money from your savings to your checking? LOL!
From my bank account you can make transfers to external accounts
Yup, I have several ING accounts and you can do external ACH transfers to a linked account. So there are instances where having online banking credentials could be bad. My Best Buy card, somebody could change my address online and request a new card. Many ways things could be exploited.
I knew some people wouldn't be enthusiastic about it, and that's fine. It just strikes me as a funny that there's so much trepidation about state-of-the-art online security setups (not that they're impenetrable) while so many unskilled, careless workers handle or have access to much more sensitive information of yours. I bet you all have your SSNs and everything else necessary for identy-theft at utility companies, cell providers, student accounts, etc. I've been involved with one case of identity theft, and that involved someone taking my info off of a physical credit application. The tool opened up the account himself and bought merchandise from the same store. It was an open-and-shut case, but it was still a major PITA to deal with.
Do nickels provide good stability?
That was harsh. I should have said quarters...
Believe me, I'm just as if not more paranoid about the employees in at my bank or other institutes that I hold sensitive accounts - precisely because of how more people seem to be so far concerned with 3rd parties. You are very much correct, many people see a 3rd party and all of a sudden it's an instant "WHAT?! I'm NOT giving my info out to them" when in reality they are just as if not more of susceptible within the realm of their bank or other institution. If anything I would expect the 3rd party to be more secure since they are dealing with constant scrutiny.
I suppose my stance isn't strictly the stance of not having signed up because I'm fearful of my sensitive data being leaked. Instead, it's more of a mix between the added potential point of exposure in addition to the benefit I will receive from the service. I've tried Wesabe.com once prior which is similar but you have to manually upload your data, cool features, but I just didn't get much benefit from it compared to what I currently do on my PC at home. My wife and I are not huge spenders and we both have a pretty good idea of our bank balances. We also operate from three checking accounts, we each have our own and we also have a bills checking. We have automatic transfers from our accounts upon paydays spread through the month to cover the cost of our bills in which we know the exact amounts and we manually transfer the rest as the other bills come due. As a result we can splurge here and there with minimal risk of having an overdraft since our bills are drawn from a different account. If one of us wasn't on the same page as far as managing our money goes, I'm sure we'd utilize a service like Mint.com since it would be more beneficial at that point to us - but we just have an alternate system that works for us
I use gnucash on Ubuntu on a VM in MacOS. I do it this way so I have access to it wherever I am, since my laptop follows me around everywhere. It has the capability to update my records by pulling data online from my bank, but I don't use it.
I find that forcing myself to enter my transactions by hand makes me accountable for and conscious of my spending. I seriously think twice about making large expenditures when I'm faced with my net worth on an almost daily basis, and I find myself thinking twice about making many small purchases when I'm faced with the annoyance of entering all the transactions by hand. I used to just buy food each day, whatever I felt like eating, I bought. Now I actually plan my grocery list in advance, and it's helped me focus on areas where I was overspending, as well as allowing me to buy in bulk and save money. About the only online financial aspect I use is my banks bill pay service. It's convenient to not have to go to the post office to pay my bills, and while banking online may be somewhat secure, paying your bills online still puts you in a position to be compromised. I used to pay my bills online, but in 2007, I had 3 credit cards automatically replaced because payment processors had their customer databases compromised. So I don't give my credit card info to anyone if I can avoid it.
He's a high roller... silver dollars yo!
My Site | Face
Anyway, I just use Excel now... my wife aparently has used Excel forever and loves it.
http://jasonereid.blogspot.com/