Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Best Website for Your Financial Plan

As many of my readers know, I recently got married (about 5 months ago now).

Well, Investopedia has an interesting article entitled, "The No. 1 Reason Why Couples Fight."  Any guesses on what the number one reason is?....

Money.  Yep, I'm sure many of you guessed it.  Money.

Since our wedding my wife and I have had several in depth "money" discussions, but fortunately we have yet to fight over this topic.  In fact, thankfully we've  been able to sincerely and candidly (but still lovingly) discuss this area of our lives and appear to be for the most part on the same page with each other.  Thank the Lord!

Nevertheless, despite these conversations, we both didn't have what I would call a clear "financial plan" I think.  In fact, we've recently found ourselves spending almost all (and even more than) what we were making some months (despite my job and her part time job.)  This, as you can guess, makes it difficult to invest..

Fortunately, however, I believe we have found an answer.  The answer came to us in a single website - a website that will allow us to develop a comprehensive financial plan and monitor our progress- everything from spending, budgeting, goal setting, investing, you name it.  And the best part - it's completely free as well.  If you haven't used this program yet, you need to...

It's easy to understand why money is an area of conflict in relationships - merging numerous accounts, different priorities, different goals, different spending habits, different ideas about money and what it should be used for, etc.  The list could go on and on and on.

Fortunately, however, through some simple discussion, compromise, and the website I've been referencing (which I'll reveal now)....MINT.COM, the task of merging two financial lifestyles into one can become almost completely painless.


Perhaps like many of you, I had heard about mint.com for months and thought nothing of it.  I thought to myself, I know how to track and manage my money, I've got my own excel-file trackers, I am diligent, blah blah blah.

Well, when it comes to tracking my finances (especially with my wife now part of the picture) I do not stand a chance compared to mint.com.  Seriously.

Within 15 minutes of set up, my wife and I had all accounts synchronized in one place, budgets established, goals developed, plans implemented to achieve them, our net worth displayed, alerts set up to our email, and detailed analyses and reports illustrating exactly where our money was going, etc.

It was, as the saying goes, "too easy."

I strongly recommend this website to anyone looking to better manage their overall financial picture.  I have also heard and thought of the program Quicken, but have not tried it up to this point.  I imagine it may be just as good, but it does cost a little to purchase.

In conclusion, hopefully this article provided you with some insight (or at least reminded you) of the importance of staying on top of your 'financial game-plan', especially when you have a large event in your life such as marriage.

Though I thought I was doing a decent job by myself beforehand, I realize there's always room for improvement, and Mint.com definitely helped bring my wife and I to a better, and clearer overall financial plan.

If you've used mint.com, I'd like to hear your thoughts about it.  Please comment below if you can.

Thanks for reading,

DivPartisan

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4 comments:

  1. Partisan,

    I've been using Mint for a while now, and like you I cannot say enough good things about it. I use my debit card for almost every transaction I make and once you set it up correctly it's pretty much on auto-pilot. Every debit card transaction automatically filters itself into the correct category. Great site!

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  2. I heard mint.com was just recently made available in Canada. I'll have to check it out! Thanks for the great post.

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