{"id":410,"date":"2008-06-07T05:21:39","date_gmt":"2008-06-07T05:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/?p=410"},"modified":"2008-06-07T05:21:39","modified_gmt":"2008-06-07T05:21:39","slug":"keepyourfinancesmintyfresh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/keepyourfinancesmintyfresh\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep your finances minty fresh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"images\/alex\/mint.png!\nOkay, I'm not a money guy.  In fact, it's hard to imagine someone who knows less about money than I do, but I'm slowly turning that around.  The primary resource on this quest to become more financially aware is a cool web2.0 site called \"Mint.com\":<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mint.com\">http:\/\/www.mint.com<\/a>.\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"images\/alex\/Mint_com_features_budget_spending_compare.png!\nMint links into data feeds from all of your existing accounts and allows you to easily visualize your spending\/saving patterns.  Money management does become easier when you actually see what's going on across your accounts, so let me show you what data analysis tools you get if you sign up (which is free) with Mint.  First of all you can see what percentage of your spending goes to what category (A) or you can see your spending over time and compare to other Mint users in your area (B).  If there are other Mint users getting better interest rates than you are, the site automatically tells you how to get them too (C ) and if planning and meeting budgets is your problem, the Mint budget planner (D) helps see the bigger picture.  It can even be programmed to send you a text message or e-mail when you make a big purchase, a transfer clears, or if you go over budget.\nI've enjoyed using all of Mint's features and am looking forward to their \"investment widget\":<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mint.com\/investments-beta-invite-tell-a-friend.html\">http:\/\/www.mint.com\/investments-beta-invite-tell-a-friend.html<\/a> but if you'd rather not use their tools, the site is still worth visiting for advice.  Mint has teamed up with \"Motley Fool\":<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fool.com\/\">http:\/\/www.fool.com\/<\/a> to produce a \"finance blog\":<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.mint.com\/blog\/\">http:\/\/blog.mint.com\/blog\/<\/a> that has great tips on saving, investment and all that sort of thing.  Some interesting links I've come across are this \"renting vs. buying calculator\":<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/04\/10\/business\/2007_BUYRENT_GRAPHIC.html?_r=1&#038;ex=1188014400&#038;en=03cc4186608359a8&#038;ei=5070&#038;oref=slogin\">http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/04\/10\/business\/2007_BUYRENT_GRAPHIC.html?_r=1&#038;ex=1188014400&#038;en=03cc4186608359a8&#038;ei=5070&#038;oref=slogin<\/a> from the New York Times, and these \"30 free eBooks\":<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.mint.com\/blog\/finance-core\/30-free-ebooks-to-learn-everything-you-want-to-know-about-personal-finance\/\">http:\/\/blog.mint.com\/blog\/finance-core\/30-free-ebooks-to-learn-everything-you-want-to-know-about-personal-finance\/<\/a> about personal finance.\nThis post is running on in length and I don't want you to stop reading so I'm going to link now to some good old Duenos articles about money management that Brian put together under the title _Save Money_:\n* \"Canceling Credit Cards\":<a href=\"http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/300\/SaveMoneyCancelingCreditCards\">http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/300\/SaveMoneyCancelingCreditCards<\/a>\n* \"AmEx Mortgage Rewards\":<a href=\"http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/295\/SaveMoneyAmExMortgageRewards\">http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/295\/SaveMoneyAmExMortgageRewards<\/a>\n* \"Stop Junk Mail\":<a href=\"http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/252\/SaveMoneyStopJunkMail\">http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/252\/SaveMoneyStopJunkMail<\/a>\n* \"Get Your Free Financial Report Card and GPA\":<a href=\"http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/198\/SaveMoneyGetYourFreeFinancialReportCardandGPA\">http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/198\/SaveMoneyGetYourFreeFinancialReportCardandGPA<\/a>\n* \"Don't Sell Your Books at the Bookstore\":<a href=\"http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/176\/SaveMoneyDontSellYourBookstotheBookstore\">http:\/\/duenos.net\/article\/176\/SaveMoneyDontSellYourBookstotheBookstore<\/a>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mint links into data feeds from all of your existing accounts and allows you to easily visualize your spending\/saving patterns.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffginger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}