Mint is a cool solution with some nice features, but it's not perfect. When you create your Mint.com account, it asks you to input your login information from your bank(s), your broker, your credit cards, your mortgage holder, etc. so it can present a grid of your assets and debts. Persistence will help. Bank of America and Chase worked right away, but it took days to get Mint to recognize my ING login, and I'm still trying to get Mint and Wachovia/Wells Fargo to talk to each other, probably due to the all the merger and acquisition activity between those two and AG Edwards. Unfortunately, without that Wells Fargo mortgage information, Mint thinks that I own my home outright. (I probably never will.)
Expounding on that last point, if you have a mortgage on your home, you can input its address, and Cyberhomes.com will incorporate your estimated home market value. I don't need to tell you how depressing this can be, but it's crucial information, so, onward.
The most critical information comes from your everyday bank and your credit cards because Mint is able to view all your spending transactions and compile them in a meaningful way. It's pretty good at correctly characterizing purchases as groceries, restaurants, gas, shopping, etc., but you can manually re-characterize anything that it gets wrong. Then it shows you how much you've spent in these categories, which can be an incredible eye-opener. If you've set a budget for these categories, it will show you how much money you have left to spend, or how much you've gone over the limit. You can also view this information over time (monthly, year to date) and generate trending reports for expenditures, income, net worth, assets, and debts.
And, setting a budget is not so painful and mystifying as it can be. Because Mint is able to view what you've spent, it can generate numbers that are suggested by your previous activity. If you wish to spend less, simply adjust the number downward and see if you can make it work.
Because Mint is linked to your accounts, it can generate real-time numbers. This is very helpful, except that pending transactions are not taken into account, so you still have to log into those accounts on occasion to get a truly accurate picture of how much you really have in your checking account.
And of course Mint and its third-party affiliates try to sell you stuff. Credit cards, insurance, CDs, brokerage accounts. However, I don't find it terribly intrusive.
Give it a whirl.
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