Why I love mint.com

Note: This is not a sponsored post, though I'd love it if mint.com did pay me. I just really love the site and think that it's been instrumental in helping me control my financial situation.

In my learning links pages, I've listed www.mint.com as one of the top websites I use. In fact of all the websites I visit, Facebook and google are probably the only two websites I visit on a more regular basis. Mint is a website that compiles all of your financial accounts into one location. The idea behind the website is that by seeing what you have available and what you owe, you will be able to make better financial decisions and possibly even save money by being aware of where your money goes on a regular basis.

Little warning: in order to use mint, you have to be willing to give the website the login credentials to all of your bank accounts. This is a little disconcerting for many people and it is a cause for pause. They say they establish a read-only connection with the bank and don't have the ability to do anything with your accounts beyond reading out the data. They also say that they use the same encryption as banks to login, so the chances of someone intercepting the data are minimal. I thought about it for a while and decided that it was worth it for me. At the time, 2009, I only had a few bills and even then I could see myself losing track of my bank accounts. I've never thought twice about it since then.

It's free to use the site, so of course it's important to understand where they make their money, since it's not by selling your login information. Mint makes their money by making deals with financial institutions and featuring their products on certain parts of the website. I find this information useful and although I'm not applying for credit lines and mortgages, knowing what's out there and having a central location to look at rates and offers is nice. They compare all of the products and show you how much money you might save if you switch to the lower rate card that they are offering or perhaps you won't save anything by switching when rewards are included. All of this is based on your spending habits and personal profile.

Mint has a lot of features that are extremely useful to me, and I have no idea how I would keep track of everything without them.

Transactions: This is the main area of the website, and probably the most important. Here all of your transactions that show up on your statements are compiled into one list. This even includes pending charges, which are critical to be aware of in order to prevent overdraft fees. This also keeps you from having to log into all of your accounts on a regular basis to keep track of everything. I check this list at least once a day, and on more than one occasion I've been able to find a strange transaction that I didn't recognize. Since my spending was still fresh in my mind I was able to figure out what it was within minutes instead of trying to remember what it was weeks later when I received my statement. While everyone should be concerned about identity theft, I sleep a little better at night knowing what's been charged to my accounts everyday. Additionally, you can add cash transactions manually to include those in budgets and other features.

Balances: Another big part of personal finance is knowing where you stand. At any given point I know exactly how much money I have in each account and how much is due on each credit card and loan.

Budgets: Here's where Mint really shines. Mint allows you to set budgets for hundreds of predefined and custom categories. Each transaction is automatically categorized and associated with any budgets you've established. For this reason I almost exclusively use credit cards for purchases. I pay them off at the end of the month, but between reward points and accurately tracking my spending, this system works for me. Everyday I know exactly how much I can spend on lunch, groceries, housing supplies, electronics, bars and clubs, and numerous other items. Sometimes I go over, but when I do I know it. Mint sends an email letting me know.

Bill Reminders: This is somewhat of a new feature and it is amazing. After scanning through your transactions over a few months, Mint creates a list of what it thinks are monthly bills, including the average cost. It then populates a calendar and sends out email reminders a week in advance of each bill. Currently, I have 15 reminders (Yea I have that many bills, and only 3 of them are actually credit cards...) and I know exactly when each of them are due and how much each one is. Once I saw that many were due at the same time, I moved some of the due dates around to spread them out evenly over the month.

Goals: Mint give you the ability to attach different accounts to custom goals. Want to save up for a car? Open a separate savings account at your bank and assign that account to a goal at Mint. Now a progress bar will keep you up to date on how you are progressing toward your goal and at your current rate when you will reach it. Handy.

Mint.com isn't perfect; there are a few glitches here and there, and a few features that could definitely be refined (I'm looking at you Investment Section). But for a free product that is as good as it is, I'm very satisfied. And they are constantly improving the experience and adding new helpful features, so I'm really happy about that.

There are tons of features, including many many different types of graphs for all you analytical people out there (shhh don't tell anyone, but I study my graphs all the time) and other cool little tidbits that I won't get into here. I suggest is checking the website out and seeing if it might be something you're interested in. I don't think you even need to include any of your accounts to get started and look around.

Oh and they have mobile apps available. The iPad one is beautiful.

Any of you use mint.com or have thought about it? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Patience is difficult, but not impossible

In our quest for constant self-improvement, it's easy to forget one thing: patience. I always considered myself a patient person until I took the time to really think about it. Of course this happened long after I had decided I should think about it because I had to take the time to stop fretting about what I wasn't doing in life. In actuality, what I thought was patience was a watered down version of something vaguely resembling patience. Yea, I can wait a few days/weeks for something I want, but true patience can mean a lot longer than that.

The key is to remember that for many of us, we're just starting out in the world. It's easy to compare yourself to someone who is doing big things. Having role models is critical to our success, but it takes a little effort to really think about what they did to get there. For many of the people who are renown for changing the world, they weren't always at the place they're at now. Often it took many steps that got them to where they are now, with some of the steps taking a few years before they were even able to progress to the next stage.

I have to think about that from time to time to put things into perspective. For as long as I feel like I've been a part of the work force, it is a blip on some other people's career paths. A little stint they did while they were moving from one place to another.

Think about this for a second. Sir Richard Branson, one of the most prolific entrepreneurs of our time and a personal inspiration to me, started his first company when he was 16. It was a newspaper entitled Student. It took four years from then to setup the audio record mail order business that he later used to inspire the beginning of his empire, Virgin Records, which he started two years later. So even though he was working night and day from the age of 16, he still didn't form the beginnings of what would many years later become a massive organization for six years. And that's just to start. He is 61 years old now. 45 years after his first start, he is what we know today. How do you compare yourself to someone who has been working at what they are doing for nearly twice as long as you've been alive? While you spent years learning the basic life functions, important skills by the way, he was learning about building businesses.

For me keeping that in mind really helps to ground my sense of frustration at not being further along towards my goals. Heck, I still haven't fully defined and described my goals, so how can I really be frustrated at not moving towards them quickly enough? Always compare yourself to actually comparable people. And then stop comparing yourself altogether because everyone's situation is different. Maybe the person you are comparing yourself to had it easy and was able to focus on other things due to their situation. Maybe they had it tough, and used that as energy to drive them to excel. Either way it doesn't matter because you are who you are and all you can do is be the best that you can be.

Taking on resolutions

With the new year upon us, many people have come up with resolutions for the upcoming year. Most years I don't really think resolutions are particularly useful, but this year feels a little different. Something changed in the air for me, so I feel motivated to make some changes in my life. I'll share a few in a bit.

The most difficult part about resolutions is not starting the good habit, but keeping it up. This is why I'm a firm believer in limiting the number of changes that you want to make in your life at any given time. A lot of people want to be healthier in the new year, so they try a bunch of different things. Exercise, eating healthy foods, drinking more water, taking vitamins, quitting smoking, and the list goes on. These are all valid and wonderful goals to strive towards, but imagine trying to do all of them at once. Waking up early and stretching before you head to the gym, coming back and cooking a healthy breakfast, chugging a bottle of water, skipping your usual smoke, all the while keeping a positive attitude. Doesn't sound like that would last very long with only a change in a single digit on the calendar as motivation.

But imagine instead just taking one cigarette out of your routine this week. Then next week skipping a second one. And then a month from then walking around your office building for 15 minutes during lunch. Then just continuing on in this fashion throughout the year, adding new things to your daily habits. That sounds like pretty reasonable changes to make. In fact they sound easy. So easy that it would be hard for someone to get derailed or become too overwhelmed with other life events to follow through with it. And yet, in a few months, you'd be healthier by far than if you tried it all at once and failed after a few weeks when the first stressful work or family emergency came up.

For me, I've made two resolutions. Just two. The first is to try something I wouldn't normally do at least once a week. Doesn't have to be something big, could just be going to a different gas station or calling someone I normally email. In 52 weeks, I should have had at least 52 new experiences, experiences I wouldn't have had otherwise. I think that this will be a fun experiment for me. So far, I've become a much happier person and it's only a week in.

The second resolution is to apply my creativity to all aspects of my life. This is a little hard to define as a SMART Goal, but I can feel when I'm doing it and when I'm not. Little examples so far have been rearranging a few pieces of furniture in my apartment for a better look, suggesting creative solutions at work, and fitting in more social activities with friends that are budget friendly and work with busy schedules.

How has this first week gone for you? Have you kept your resolutions thus far, or have you reevaluated what you want to or can focus on?

Saving money during the winter

The weather in the northeast has been pretty warm so far this year, but it probably won't stay that way for long. Many housing situations include heat in the rent, but some do not. Even if they do, there are a few reasons why you want to be smart about lowering heating costs and making your place as comfortable as possible. Here are a few tips to keep costs down during the winter and cold spells wherever you live:

Space Heater: 

Central air is nice, convenient, and it really shines in the summer. But in the winter, it can be a pain. Specifically, if you have an apartment with multiple rooms and only one thermostat, inevitably, one of the rooms is going to be too hot or too cold. The easiest way I've come to dealing with this problem is buying a space heater. The bedroom is the most challenging, because when you sleep you don't want to have to wake up to adjust the temperature to your liking, so you will just be miserable and tired when you get up in the morning.

In my last apartment, the thermostat was in the bedroom, so as long as I kept the bedroom at the desired temperature with the space heater, the central air never came on. This saved a lot of money. In my current place, the thermostat is in the living room, so I still keep the space heater in the bedroom, and just turn down the thermostat lower than normal, so that it doesn't make the bedroom too hot even when the living room is freezing.

In the end it just comes down to it being cheaper to heat one room rather than the whole apartment. A space heater will definitely be an additional electric load, it is a giant resistor after all, but not having to power a central fan can make up for that easily. 

Thermostat setting:

I play a little game with the thermostat, "How cold is too cold." I set my thermostat to a temperature, and then if I'm comfortable, I lower it a degree. And then after a while, if I'm still comfortable, I lower it another degree. I keep doing that until I'm cold and then bump it up a degree and keep it there. It turns out that it doesn't take much to save money, while still being comfortable.

Windows:

Seems obvious right? Close windows and cold air won't come in. How about this: Lock the windows. If security isn't a big worry, (think 5 floors up and no fire escapes on that side of the building) locking the windows may not seem like a big deal. I learned a little late, that locking windows actually helps seal the window and prevent drafts. During an especially cold day last year, I happened to be by my window and feel a cold breeze hitting my ankles. Turns out, the window was closed, but not locked, and so as soon as I locked it, the breeze stopped. I still kick myself for wasting heat for weeks before I noticed this.

Not only did these tips save me money, they also made my apartment so much more comfortable. My last apartment wasn't insulated very well, and so there were many drafts from closets and windows. Having the heat constantly come on and off was loud, and made the rooms hot for a few minutes, normal for the next and then cold for the following few minutes before the heat came back on. With drafts plugged, thermostats set comfortably and a heater in the room that mattered, the apartment stayed at a normal temperature for hours.

Perception

Very often I hear about people who fall into bad lifestyle habits because of the media. Specifically I’m referring to bad financial habits. Now usually I dismiss it, since I mean of course the extravagant shows are false, and people aren't trying to replicate them. No, you can't buy your wife a Rolex every Christmas, or go on a vacation to the other side of the world as a surprise Valentine's Day getaway. Well most of us can't. And pretty much everyone knows that. But what doesn't really show up on people's radars are “normal shows”.

Examples of this comes up all the time in sitcoms. Sometimes it's their living arrangements. Even in shows where the main characters have relatively mundane jobs, they often times live in 'modest' housing. By modest I mean 4-bedroom 3-bathroom houses that would easily be unaffordable with their salaries. 

Another common misconception is that small hospital visits don't add up. I'm thinking of the show Home Improvement, a comedy with an over-the-top father who had an unhealthy obsession with power tools. Obviously there was some comedic value in the main character always ending up in the hospital for doing something stupid, but even a small visit could set your budget completely out of whack, let alone numerous ones.

Unless you're paying attention, most people don't realize these inconsistencies. Well until they start working and start wondering why they couldn't live like the “normal people” on TV.

According to Wikipedia, the average US income in 2006 was $50,233. I'm going to throw that into perspective for a family of two with no children. All of these assumptions are on the low side to further my point.

• Tax Bracket: Assuming 25% taxes, including federal and state, that leaves you with roughly $3139/month in income.
• Housing: I'm going to assume a mortgage and homeowner's insurance total of $1000/month which is relatively modest. This comes out to roughly a $200,000 home with a $50,000 down payment and fairly good credit.
• Auto Costs: $20,000 car with a down payment of $5000 leaves a monthly payment of roughly $300/month plus an additional $300/month in gas, insurance, and maintenance.
• Food: USDA estimate for a family of two is $500 a month. Since it’s pretty easy to save on groceries, I’m going to assume this includes meals out.
• Utility Bills: I'll go easy and say that electric, gas, water, cable, internet, and cell phone bills top out at $250. I think that's pushing it, but we'll go with it.
• Other Insurance: A lot of companies have insurance plans, but they most times won't cover the whole premium. What you have to pay varies on your health profile, but according to a 2009 report, the average for a single person is roughly $250. We'll double this for two people to $500, though there may be some discounts available if you are on a spouse's plan.

When you total all of this up, it comes to $2850. That's $289 left to spend on housing supplies and maintenance, outside medical costs, gym memberships, spas, movies, videogames, etc. This also doesn't include debt repayment for credit cards and student loans, and most importantly savings for both short term goals and your retirement. And this is all assuming rather low numbers to begin with. So you see where the numbers don’t add up.

The point is, when you see a show with a character buying fancy new furniture, take a second to think. Would they really be able to afford that? Would you? When you think for a second, you realize what you knew all along: real life really isn't like what you see on TV. Not even close.

Finding a passion

My last post about goals ended up causing quite a few discussions between my friends and family and I. Turns out, a lot of people are searching for their passion in life. As am I.

Here’s one thought that came out of everything that I wanted to focus on:

You don’t have to find the thing that you’re going to be passionate about for the rest of your life. All you have to do is find the one that you’re passionate about today. The day that you stop being passionate about it, is the day that you start looking for the next thing.

People are always passionate about something. You may not realize it about yourself or others, but if you dig deep enough, humans are passionate beings. So there’s going to be something to be passionate about, the hard part is figuring out exactly what it is, and even harder, what you can do to make that part of your daily life.

For a long time I was passionate about videogames. Not your average everyday passion, I mean serious enough to wake up early before high school (remember how early you had to wake up to begin with?) just to get a few extra minutes in. Some might call this an obsession, but it wasn’t quite like that. I didn’t talk about games all day, didn’t dream about games, and I could really stop when I wanted, but I just didn’t really have a reason. I kept up my grades and still had a decent social life.

And then one day, that changed. I went from being passionate about games to being passionate about looking forward in my life. Big change, but life changes. Currently, I haven’t played a serious videogame (flight control on iOS doesn’t count) in over two months. And while I might go and turn on my XBox the moment I’m done writing this, it’s not because I’m passionate about it.

Passions change, and so do people, but that shouldn’t keep you from making a decision about what you want to be doing. You shouldn't worry about what you commit to doing now so that in 30 years you’re still enjoying doing that same thing. All you have to commit to is doing something long enough to figure out if that’s what you want to be doing until you decide otherwise. Many times that's only a few years, not a lifetime. 

I think that somewhere along the way, we adopted the idea that there's only one life long passion, only one thing that you would be happy doing for the rest of your life, and you had to find it to be happy. The more I think about it, the more I think that you probably develop many passions over the years, and as long as you're doing what you're currently passionate about, what more can you ask for?

So when you get to the point that you're looking for this passion, don't try and plan the rest of your life around it, that's too big of a decision. Just plan the next few years. And then watch as those plans morph, disappear, and interconnect with others to inspire the future you. Life's amazing like that.

Starting and finishing a goal

Everyone sets goals whether they realize it or not. Some are big, but most are small. We live our lives completing one task after another. And most of these are SMART goals. At least the ones that we accomplish.

SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. I might go more into these in the future, but for now check out the link to Wikipedia's page on it. I know this sounds like some jargon filled saying you would hear in a meeting room, but it really applies to all parts of life. Hear me out. Basically, it means that simply saying "I want to exercise more," is going to be setting myself up for failure. What do I want to do to exercise? Go to the gym or maybe join a fitness class? How long do I want to give myself to accomplish this? A month, a year, a lifetime? More? You get the idea. Without defining my goal clearly, how am I supposed to know if I actually accomplished it? How am I even supposed to work towards it?

Think back to all of the times in the past when you've accomplished a goal, and think whether or not it fits into being a SMART goal. I'm willing to bet that it does, even if that's not how you defined it at the time. Ever written a term paper? Guess what, it was a SMART goal. Ever saved up for a trip? Yep that too. You knew where you were going, how much money you needed, the fact that you could physically go, it was feasible in your lifestyle, and you knew when you had to save up by.

But here's the question I've been thinking about recently: What do you do when you're satisfied with the progress you've made toward a goal? Sounds like a silly problem, but it's actually really important. In order to succeed in an endeavor, you have to push towards a goal. After reaching that goal, the majority of the time the next step is to set another one further along the path. But what happens when you've reached your goal and don't see the need to set another one in that particular part of your life?

For example I set out a goal to exercise more (not a SMART goal, but we'll look past that for now). I've done that and I've seen some results that I like. Great, right? Well now what? I could work a little harder, but I wasn't trying to lose 30 lbs or gain 20 lbs of muscle to begin with. Obviously, I'm going to continue to exercise, but without a specific goal in mind, I know that it will be easier to lose motivation further down the line.

Here's what I've come up with so far, though it is by no means a fully thought out plan of action.

First, be proud of what you've accomplished. Reaching goals is an exciting thing and it should be celebrated. Being better than you were a few years, months, or even minutes ago is a worthy accomplishment because it shows the uptrend that you have in life.

Second, admit that it's ok to be done. Now admitting that it's ok to be done is not the same thing as being done. That's for later. But it's important to be ok with the idea of being done with something. It's easy to get caught up in the rat race to always strive to be better.

Third, decide if you are actually done. Maybe the goal that you set wasn't really the goal that you wanted, or maybe it didn't push you enough. Whatever the reason, if you feel genuinely lacking, this is the point when you redefine what it is you want to be striving for. If you are done, then sit back and enjoy, but if not then there's no time like the present to keep working.

In actuality, the more I think about it, my goal was to make exercising a part of my lifestyle, and I can say that I've done that. And if I think a little more about it, turns out that it was a SMART goal. I won't bore you with the details.

How has goal setting gone for you?

Moving from internships to careers

Many students pick up internships and other temporary positions during their college years. These jobs are important, everyone will tell you that, but it's not always so obvious why at first. Seems kind of odd, practicing to get a job by getting a job. The truth is that there are many reasons why internships are important both before and after you graduate.

The first benefit of internships is the fact that you learn what you like and don't like to do. Most times, the work you will be doing won't be the most impressive, because, well you don't have a whole lot of experience. Doesn't make sense to put you in charge of a project, when you've been with the company for three days, and will probably leave to go back to school well before it is done. You will, however, get a taste of how a company in your chosen industry operates. If you join a consulting firm, even if you aren't travelling all the time as an intern, you will probably see associates come and go often. If you're in a creative field, you may see the steps of how ideas go from concepts to realities. These are important lessons, ones that will give you an idea of whether or not you'll like working in that type of environment. 

The second benefit is to actually get practice at working. When you finish school, having some work experience is a definite bonus on your resume, especially if it's in your field. That will give you more options on positions you can take. Large companies will take on students with little to no experience because they can afford to train them. Smaller companies can't always do that, so having experience might allow you to successfully apply to one of these. Having an internship can expose you to small things, like using Microsoft Outlook and Exchange to interact with clients, to larger things, like specific research equipment and techniques that might be useful later on. When you start your career, learning these things might take valuable time away from learning other more important things, so having an internship is like getting a head start. Employers know this.

Applying what you've learned will come easy with some skills, and more difficult with others. For example, I learned a lot about a few specific pieces of equipment from internships over the years. I've used exactly none of them to date at my current job. Seems like kind of waste, right? Not exactly. Knowing about the equipment, specifically the limitations they have, has come in handy in discussing ideas at brainstorming sessions. Also, knowing how to learn a lot about something in a short amount of time has taught me what to pay attention to when learning new things for my current position. Learning how to properly interact with people older than me has been an ongoing theme, and I'm still working on it, but internships definitely helped. And this has just been my experience. Some people I know worked on the same equipment they use now and are in the exact field they studied to be in. So for them it was a pretty obvious learning experience.

Finally, having an internship with the company you would like to work for is a way to get a leg up in the hiring process. Internships are generally easier to get than permanent positions. It's less risky for the employer, since they know that if things don't work out, you'll be leaving in a few weeks. It's a lot harder to fire a permanent employee. Once you have an internship, employers can learn about your work ethic and whether or not you would be a good fit as an employee. You can use this to your advantage and go directly to your supervisors for job offers in the future.

What have you learned from internships, or have you found them to just be a waste of time?

A little focus goes a long way

One of the benefits of being young and inexperienced is that you are always thinking about what could be. It's one of those things that older generations envy about young people; we are always dreaming. Have you ever caught yourself day dreaming about some major contribution you could make at work, or perhaps a way of creating a new product or service, or maybe even just a different way of arranging your furniture?

When you're young, you're not stuck in a way of doing things. And while experience is good, it can many times cause people to only look at a problem in one way. That's where you and your fresh mind fit into the equation.

This is a great thing, but sometimes we can go a bit overboard. I have a hard time focusing. As I mentioned before, it's hard for me to stick with one thing and do it well. With so many opportunities out there, it's easy to get distracted. So I'm working on focusing. I decided I wanted to learn how to play the guitar recently. I'll just have to fit it in between trying to relearn Spanish, get back into dancing, inventing a new gadget, and writing these posts. Sounds like a good idea right? Not really. There's only enough time in the day to do so many things, and honestly, people often times overestimate what is realistic. Especially young people.

Have to hit you with a little Yoda:

All his life has he looked away...to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. 

That's how a lot of people are. But if you focus on what you are doing, and only on what you are doing, it's amazing what you can actually accomplish. This isn't a sermon about the evils of multitasking, but rather a discussion about how being present for a large-scale task is important. I've experienced this over and over again, and yet still haven't fully grasped it. Every time I really put my mind toward doing something and completing it from start to finish, the results are infinitely better.

I'm not talking about writing an email or reading a book, I'm talking about accomplishing a big goal. Devoting your mental attention to something often enough that your friends will start to complain that all you talk about is this goal. That's the kind of focus that gets you really into something.

Leo Babauta over at zenhabits has a free ebook entitled focus that I go back to from time to time. Check it out; it's a little preachy at times, but is a great reference and inspiration for me.

Next time you have a few free minutes at work, instead of getting into busy work or surfing the web, try and think about what it is you are really doing there and what you are trying to accomplish. If you feel like you are moving in that direction full steam ahead, then I applaud you. You are doing what I have not been able to do without many instances of failure. If you aren't moving in that direction, well you are not alone, but it is something to strive for and now you know it.

And then after you've established focus and completed what you set out to do...let it go. Let your mind go free and dream about all the different things you could be doing. Balancing the two ways of thinking will lead to incredible things.

Status 11-21-2011

Two things:

First, in case you haven't noticed already, I've been posting on a less frequent basis. One thing I want to avoid is just writing for the sake of writing. Usually readers can tell when a post is just filler. I kinda hate that. Since I hit on a lot of the main topics early on, I'm going to be focusing on delving a little deeper and taking my time to write more in-depth posts. Hopefully this is for the better.

Second, I'm going to be making some changes over the course of the next few weeks to the design and layout of the website. I'll be rolling out changes here and there and seeing what readers think about them. So make sure to post a comment here if you love/hate the changes. First on the list is to lighten the mood a little. I like dark colors, but I'm feeling like it makes the site a little depressing. New background and color palettes are on the way.