A penny saved... (#8)

A couple of years ago, back when I was a grant accountant for the local nursing college, I hosted a series of internal workshops for faculty who were responsible for managing their grant funds (they thought I was responsible, but really, they were responsible and I just had oversight). To make the workshop fun (and less boring), I used the tagline 'getting our financial ducks in a row' and gave everyone a plastic duck as a give-away item (which I paid for personally). The ducks just happened to be dressed up as pirates, which was my own little joke (ie, we were 'pirates,' protecting our 'grant-funded treasure').

Back in those days I was working long hours, long weeks, and had very few things to laugh about--so pirate ducks were about as good as it got.

I mention this story now, because although I'm excellent at managing my financial ducks at the office (and yes, they're all in a row), I'm not so great at managing my financial ducks at home. Well, let me clarify--I make enough to pay all of my bills, set aside funds for saving and retirement, and have some fun money for travel and entertainment, but I don't operate on any sort of specific budget. And from time to time, my personal non-budgeting ways make me feel a little uncomfortable--because I'd really like to know how much I'm spending on random, discretionary things like coffee, and movies, and of course, cards and postage! (If only I could buy stock in Hallmark.)

A few years ago I used Excel to track my spending, establishing line item categories and logging all my receipts. That proved cumbersome (I like to shop, and buy coffee, and be precise about things I'm tracking) and soon became obsolete.

Then last year, my brother told me about a free site, Mint.com, that would track your spending for you, as long as you gave it access to all your spending accounts (so it can auto-update). He said it hadn't really worked out for him (something about his bank having high security), but that he'd used it for awhile and saw the potential for the general user.

I admit, I was a little leary of any 'free' online site that requests access to sensitive data such as bank and credit card information. And although I created a Mint account over a year ago, I never really engaged in using it. Because I was suspicious, or lazy, or busy (or all three). Until last month. I figured if I've been 'on it' for a year, and no one's hacked into my accounts or stolen my identity, then it must be fairly safe. That, and now, without classes, I have a bit more time on my hands to focus on outstanding projects such as this.

A few days ago I decided to go into my Mint account and figure out if I could use it for budgeting purposes. Turns out Mint has a pretty sweet budgeting function--where you can set aside money in different categories, and then as data flows in (from your actual spending accounts--bank, credit cards, etc.), it receives a label that corresponds with one of the budget line items (or becomes 'uncategorized' and you can assign it to one of the categories).

So far the budgeting system is working great for me...I even created categories for my spending on coffee and cards (separate line items). Some of the budget totals I created arbitrarily--I know about how much I spend on rent, utilities, and gas, but am not as sure about categories such as restaurants, groceries, movies, etc.--so it's interesting to see, in the first month, how my budgeting aligned with my spending. (I made a major purchase at one of my favorite stores, Restoration Hardware, and that really killed my 'home furnishings' budget category.)

I especially like the graphical interface (pie charts, bar graphs, etc.), but haven't quite figured out how to track cash transactions (there's a function, I just need to sit down and learn how to use it). To be honest, I don't spend cash on much these days (it's never convenient to stop at the bank to actually GET some cash!). I'm pretty sure I spend my cash on two items: the pay parking lot near my office (when I'm too lazy to walk the 5 blocks from where I park on the street), and coffee (no explanation needed). Maybe it's better if I hold off on tracking those transactions for now--I may be appalled when I learn how much I spend on those non-essential items.

You can also split transactions--so, for example, when my purchase at Costco auto-defaults to the 'shopping' category, I can split it into 'gas' (I buy a Costco cash card to use for when I want to buy gas there--long story, but my debit card doesn't work at the pump), 'groceries,' 'books,' etc. The same is true for purchases at Wal-mart or Target.

I have some slight concerns about housing all my financial data in one place--every time I log into the Mint system it downloads and updates recent transactions from my bank account and my two most-used credit cards--but this online software system is managed by Intuit, and they're a legitimate company (makers of Quicken and TurboTax), so I feel some protection. I know some banks that have several levels of security do not play well with Mint--I originally had some issues with one of my savings accounts that kept blocking Mint, but was recently able to create a special access code and now everything works fine. I think financial institutions are wising up to the fact that folks want to be able to utilize tools like Mint to streamline their lives--and it's better to get with the program, or be left in the dust.

I'm still figuring out all the functionalities of the system--but have become almost addicted to it. If you're in the market for a financial/budget management software, give Mint a try. It's fairly easy to use and completely free.

My little pirate ducks give the system two thumbs up, and I consider #8 on my 101 list, complete!