My Mint Review: 5 Reasons Why I Love Mint
Mint is a free web-based financial website and app. You can input all of your financial account information in the app. I heard a lot of bloggers talking about it for years. I decided to sign up for it in November of 2014. Since then, I’ve come to love Mint. It’s one of the things that has helped me get my finances in order. The website is very secure. If you need a place where you can view all of your financial info, I would suggest that you sign up for it. In this Mint review, I want to go over five specific reasons that I love it.
You can put all your accounts in one place
Above, I stated that you can attach all of your accounts to your Mint profile. When I say all accounts, I really mean all accounts. You can attach your checking and savings accounts, credit cards, loans, and much more. Being able to see everything in one place is good. Once you do that you see all of your account info on the left. It goes in the order of cash, credit, loans, investments, and property.
I currently have both of my credit union accounts added to my Mint profile. I have my PayPal connected. I also have my credit cards on there My student loan info and my car loan are connected to the profile too. I have my retirement info on there too. Mint is really like a one-stop shop.
If you’re in debt it should motivate you
Seeing the difference in your assets and debt could be an eye opener for some. Life comes at you fast. My net worth is not as bad as it was when I first joined Mint, but I still have work to do. Having the chance to see the discrepancy in my account adds fuel to my fire. I’m working hard to gather more assets than debts.
It can be a humbling feeling the first time you see your net worth. I know I was shocked a little. There’s no reason to get down on yourself. We’ve all made financial mistakes before in the past. This is not the time to beat yourself up. This is the time to actually give yourself a small pat on the back. A lot of people won’t take the time to figure out their net worth especially if they are in debt. That is huge. You can’t go forward if you don’t know where you’re starting at!
As of November 2020, my net worth is still in the negative, but if things continue to go how they are going, I will be positive sometime late next year. I’m working too hard for this thing not to happen.
It shows all your transactions
Whether you’re paying for groceries or paying a bill, the transaction shows up on your profile. You see everything that you pay for if you are using your debit or credit card. You also see any late fees you may have. By seeing how much money you spend every month, it should get you to think about saving more. When you sign in, your transactions should update automatically. They will be organized by date. They will also have a description and a category next to each one.
Some months, I’m proud of my spending, while others not so much. Seeing all your transactions in one place can help you get a grip on your spending. You’ll have the chance to see your spending habits. You can see what things you should keep spending on, and then see what you should stop spending.
It lets you know upcoming due dates for your bills
I know people have very busy lives. If you have a lot of bills, you may forget a due date every once in a while. Mint helps with that. They have a small calendar on the overview page on your account that has the due dates listed. They also send out alerts via e-mail. You can also sign up for mobile alerts too. If you tend to forget your due dates, those alerts can be a game changer.
I have my student loans and my credit cards added to the bill’s section. Even though I’m great when it comes to paying things on time, it doesn’t hurt to get an extra reminder. Once you add your bills to the bill’s section, you’ll probably feel the same way.
You can create monthly budgets
Next up on the Mint review is the option to create budgets. In my opinion, I think everyone should have some type of budget. It doesn’t need to be outlandish or anything. It just needs to be something that works for you. You can create a different budget each month with Mint. You can edit and create as many categories as you want to. I have categories such as fuel, groceries, and thrift in my budget. Depending on your lifestyle, you can change the categories and amounts every month if you choose to.
As of right now, my budget has six different categories. They are gas, groceries, restaurants, clothes, thrift, and everything else. I could get into more details, but for right now, that budget works for me.
Bonus
Goals
I know I said that I was going to share five reasons with you in this Mint review, but I lied. I have a couple more. Mint has a section where you can add goals. Some of the types of goals that you can add are paying off loans or credit cards and saving for an emergency. Since I’ve been using Mint, I’ve completed three goals. I have two more to go. Seeing those goals each time that I log into my account is another way to keep me motivated.
Trends
There’s also a section called Trends. It’s a very visual area. It shows you graphs of your spending, income, net income, assets, debt, and net worth. It’s something that you should take the time and view at least once a month.
I hope that you enjoyed this Mint review. If you are looking to get your finances in order, check out Mint. Below are a few more resources that you should try as well.
If you need help negotiating some of your bills, check out Billshark. They will help you lower your cable, phone, and internet bills. Visit them here for more information.
If you want to start investing a little money, check out Acorns.
Did you enjoy this Mint review? What do you use to track your money?
Jason – I have been using Quicken for years and for all the reasons that you mention. BUT…it is expensive software and the updates are expensive too! So, Ill check this out! I love FREE!!! Helps the budget!
Free is good most of the time.
I think you still have to pay for the service, at some point, Jacquie.
I’m pretty good with money now, so I simply use my own system.
I have used Mint for one year now. I have been very satisfied with the software ease of use and its costs too.
I agree that everyone should have a budget and be organised when it comes to finances there is absolutely no way I would put all my financial information on one site and hope that they continue to be be secure. I feel the same way about cloud technology. I will give you that in theory it sounds like a great idea but what happens when they get hacked?
You do have a good point. I don’t trust cloud at all. So far so good with Mint though.
I do online banking but when it comes to keeping track I still do it the old manual way – must check out this Mint. Sounds like something I could get to like.
I like it a lot.
I love mint.com! We use it in our family, too!
I used to try to do that with Quicken. This sounds much better and much easier to use.
It is very easy.
I’ve not heard of Mint.com before. I don’t think I would sign up for it – I keep track of budgets, etc. using home-made spreadsheets and that is working for me. I could see that it might be a good choice for some people.
I just started using Mint because I was so unhappy with quicken. It doesn’t do everything that quicken used to do, but I feel like it’s a lot more streamlined and does a good job with the essentials. I like their motivational emails!
Their emails are great. It helps to keep me focused.
I’ve tested out Mint because come on, how can you be a finance blogger and not test it out? For about four years I had a custom spreadsheet that I dropped everything in myself, but I recently started to use Tiller which automates the most time-intensive part of the process of getting everything in a uniform format. It’s $5 a month but it is well worth the cost imo. I’ve started to send people their way this year.
I’ve never heard of Tiller. I need to check it out one of these days.