Ah, how I love Mint.com
EDIT: for an update on how I feel about Mint.com these days, please see this post.
Web service fave of mine Mint.com just released a pretty nifty update this morning in the form of Goals – although there is a curious lack of that news on the update blog at mint.com. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of Mint – I would go so far as to say that I’ve never really gotten more control over my finances until I surrendered them to a service like Mint, which tracks our finances automagically and cleanly. I definitely know I’ve gained more ground on expenses and trimming the fat over the last year as a direct result. Well, Mint.com just quietly gave me one more, very important dashboard item to help get more enjoyable control of where our money’s going: Goals.
With Mint.com Goals, the free service steps beyond budgeting and automatically ties in long-term goals – such as debt reduction, saving for a home or college, even taking a trip or buying a car. For example, Mint will take all of your current credit card balances and rates, your minimum payments, and ask you what more you can throw at a monthly payment plan to get that debt paid down. Move the slider to the right (aka: “I can throw some benjis at this debt, yo”) and you’ll instantly see the amount of interest paid and the date that you’ll be debt-free adjust. It’s like some sort of game – with the odds tilted in your favor.
Granted, Mint.com makes it’s money through referrals – expect to see offers for lower-interest credit cards politely suggested to you when you set up a credit debt reduction goal, for example. But something just clicked in my head when I saw that date show up for the goal I set to reduce debt, a renewed motivation to get ‘er done and keep plugging away.
And have I mentioned that the service is free?
Categorised as: GeekTech