SEATTLE — Confession: I’ve never balanced a checkbook or devised a realistic budget. I’m too impatient to follow through with manual record-keeping when all the transactions are digital.
So while I always had a general sense of my bank balance, I didn’t actually know if I was spending more than I made in a month. And that made me nervous.
A few months ago, I started using Mint.com, a free Web site that tracks what I spend and where, so I don’t have to scribble a note or remember to file the receipt. It categorizes my transactions and spits out candy-colored pie charts that help me to see when I’m buying too many shoes.
Unlike the drag of checkbook balancing, I found Mint fun to use, and much prettier than the online version of its big-name competitor, Quicken. But I learned that seeing where my money goes is only one step toward improving my personal-finance prowess.
Signing up for Mint, which launched in “beta” test mode last September, only required my e-mail address, ZIP code and password. I told Mint where I bank and what kinds of credit cards I have. The site didn’t ask for account numbers, just the same login information I use when I check my balance or pay bills online.
Mint says it has bank-quality data security and uses the same type of encryption banks do and its site has been audited by groups that ensure security including VeriSign Inc. and McAfee Inc.’s HackerSafe.
In minutes, Mint connected to my four accounts and presented me with a long list of recent transactions and current balances. It updates every night, so except for outstanding checks, my checkbook balances itself daily.
The site does its best to categorize my purchases by comparing information from the bank or credit card company with a database of business names.
That works about 85 percent of the time, Mint says. This weekend I bought garden plants at the nursery, but Mint’s best guess was “groceries.” It was easy to swap categories; it was harder to decide which of Mint’s preset categories to choose. I settled on “home improvement,” because there’s no way to make my own “gardening” category.
When I first started, I spent a lot of time combing through the list of transactions and fixing categories. Sometimes a store name showed up as a mess of abbreviations and numbers, when Mint fails to translate credit card mumbo-jumbo into English.
When I change categories or store names, there’s always an option to handle similar transactions the same way in the future. But I still find myself having to fix at least one every time I log in.
The first time I clicked the “trends” tab I worried it might reveal some unpleasant, data-driven truth about my shopping habits.
In fact, my spending wasn’t too lopsided. Big chunks of the pie went to rent, utilities and other home expenses, and to shopping and groceries. I wasn’t spoiling the dog as much as I feared.
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