The Best Thing Since Charge Cards: The Lazy Man's Financial Advisor

A reader of mine suggested that the first step to saving is efficient money management. He suggested Microsoft Money and Quicken, which have been the predominant choices for years. But technology is evolving at a rapid pace - the concept of online personal finance services such as Mint is still relatively unknown to many people. Mint is an online account aggregator and organizer with budgeting tools, all while guaranteeing 24/7 financial protection.

Once you sign up (you only need an email and a zip code - one of the key factors of its security is that it doesn't require your address or any other sensitive information) you can add all of your accounts. Mint is constantly updating and I have been able to add my checking, savings, 401k, student loan, investment accounts in addition to my gazillion credit cards. It lists all your transactions together and puts them in categories such as "Utilities" or "Income" or "Clothing". One useful feature is that you can create custom categories to help with those special expenses or to tag an expense as tax-deductible for year-end tax preparation.

It will automatically create nifty charts that compare your spending on clothing, for example, with other people in your residential area. In New York City, you're always spending less than others in your area... Or it can create pie charts that tell you how you are spending across multiple categories. It can compare your investments' performance to the S&P 500 and examine your asset allocations. You can even set budgets for groceries, shopping, etc. and Mint will email or text you if you've gone over your budget for the month! Mint will email me to remind me which credit cards are due and it gives me weekly emails that detail my net assets. Most importantly, it's smart enough to analyze the interest rate on my accounts and then introduce other banks and credit cards that offer more. (It may not be 100% accurate just yet - It just told me I can switch from my E*Trade savings to E*Trade savings to get more interest...) Still, it does nothing short of magic - check out more reasons on why to use Mint here.

Let me address the security concerns that many of my peers have voiced because let's be realistic - you don't just hand off your account numbers and passwords to anyone! Keep this in mind though: Mint does not store your information and the access it has to your accounts is designated as read-only (it cannot move money). They use bank-level security and if anything, it counters identity theft. After you set up alerts, you'll be notified instantly of unusual activity.

Check it out and let me know what you think. If anything, its a darn pretty website with cute cheery emails. I got this email yesterday - "A bill from AT&T Universal Savings and Rewards is due on 1/15/2009; your balance due is...If you've already paid, listen for applause!" Oh, and they've got a new iPhone app - y'all know I love my phone!