Episode #26 - Tool time, get Minted.
We're going to do a multi-week series specific personal finance tools
Intro:
I’ve been doing some noodling on how to maximize the time you spend in these letters and I’ve come to the early stage conclusion that modeling some personal finance practices before your eyes may just inspire you to take on some of these practices yourself.
I begin with Mint, owned by Intuit (the same folks who bring you QuickBooks). While it does leave for what to be desired - gripes will come in different episodes - I do believe that if you become a master Minter, you’ll likely pave a clearer path to long-term financial stability.
Background:
In the world of personal finance, just as in property law, possession is 9/10ths of the law. Once you have capital it is up to you as to how you spend it. Mint, if you are not familiar, effectively syncs with nearly any bank account, investment account, or other financially related accounts, which helps you figure out how to maximize your possession and dispossession of capital.
While Mint was sold to Intuit for $170 Million in 2009, it remains one of the best free money management aggregators on the market - though many do critique its limited improvement after getting acquired by a massive company. (Feel free to share your Mint gripes in the comments or in response to this email, or in response to the survey at the end.)
Takeaway:
For this episode I’ll start with some of the basic features so you can be encouraged to at least open the app that you already have or create an account to connect one (or ideally all) of your accounts.
On top of just syncing the totals of how much money you have or do not have, the app will pretty intuitively (pardon the pun) categorize your spending - like it knows you spent a quarter of your earnings this month at Barnea Bistro, or some other more effective uses of your money.
There are other parts in the syncing side of things that are cool, but I’ll let you figure those out over the course of the coming week - report back what you find!
Interact:
Go to the website. Create an account. Connect your bank accounts.
That’s an excellent start. If you have any of the investment accounts you’ve learned about in previous episodes, try signing into those too. Yes, it’s a pain to track down all of those passwords, but it’s good to get a full picture of what you have access to and what you don’t have access to. This knowledge will enable you to get a better sense of how best to budget and tackle other hurdles along the path to financial wellness.
Gratitude:
I am hoping that this pivot to covering one tool over a few weeks will enable you to learn and follow along. Do share in the comments or in direct response to the email, or just via the survey, about what you’d like to learn how to better do within Mint or regarding other tools of personal finance that you want to get under the hood, but have not had the time to figure out.