When I first read that my country was giving me back $1200, my initial reaction was outrage. Every day I read about the trillions of dollars of debt we’re in, how the nation is going into a recession, how the dollar is losing value as we owe more and more to other nations, and yet the government is giving away its money?

Now I understand that the idea is people will go out and consume things with this money, which in turn helps stimulate the economy. Yet what most people seem to think will happen is the rich people will save the money, not helping the economy one bit, while the poor will spend it on something they can’t afford in the first place.

While I consider myself far, far away from “rich”, I count myself as one of the people that will be putting this money right into savings (or maybe towards my college loan). As do most other personal finance bloggers it seems.

My wife and I are excited. We will soon be buying our first piece of “real” furniture – a leather sofa and loveseat. First, I should probably define the term “real”. Our first apartment, a cheap place in the farmlands of Sunderland, Massachusetts, consisted of all hand-me-down furniture or collectibles we found near the trash compactor. We were in college, and not concerned with the differences between, say, particle board and solid oak.

After we got married, we moved to another apartment, lugging our boxes of wedding gifts with us. Of course, the gifts consisted of mostly smaller items (dishware, appliances, photo frames) and not furniture. I have to admit it was mildly amusing displaying a beautiful Waterhouse crystal we received on top of a $9 coffee table from Ikea.

Ah, Ikea. Our love-hate relationship continues to this date. I hate it for its horrible quality chairs, uncomfortable loveseats (of which we are the reluctant owners of), and the ten hours I spent assembling a desk, table, entertainment center, and chair. I love it for its extremely reasonable prices, entertaining showroom, and absolutely delicious cafeteria food.

Considering the fact that we lived literally two minutes away from an Ikea, our apartment not surprisingly consisted of mostly Ikea furniture. And for the most part, it has worked out nicely – besides the aforementioned chair and loveseat.

Now my wife and I are packing up again, and moving to our fourth apartment in six years. We paid a bit more than we liked, but are ending up with a gorgeous place built literally two months ago. After coming home from signing our lease, we took a long look at our sad, depressed, pillowless couch and decided it was time for a new one.

So we made our way over to Jordan’s Furniture, a massive furniture store nearby. I had downed a few cups of coffee, stowed away an emergency Red Bull, and prepared for a long day of searching for a couch.

Yet as we stepped off the elevator into the sofa showroom, I saw it: A beautifully designed leather couch right smack in the middle of our price range. Hoping for the best, I slowly sank down onto the couch only to find … utter bliss. It was the perfect balance of firmness versus comfort, with a luscious leather covering that also proclaimed strong resistance to spills and stains. I hesitantly turned over the price tag to read the manufacturer details, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it met all of the standards of a good quality sofa.

Now that we have found the perfect couch for us, we have to try to swallow spending what still seems like a mind-boggling amount of money for some pieces of wood and cushions. I do try to keep reminding myself of a few things though. First, this is furniture – not exactly a luxury. Yes, it’s leather, but I did some research and leather couches cost about 10-30% more than fabric couches, and last three years longer (more considering how fond of scratching our cats our). Second, this would be the first purchase of “real” furniture we have made, from a furniture store besides Ikea. And third, of all the furniture in the house, couches are probably one of the most important pieces.

So now we arrive to the final financial question of this piece, which is whether to take the no interest, no payments for one year offer. My gut instinct is to not even consider the possibility. These are the type of plans I see offered in bright neon lights on late night television to people who spend money on things they can’t afford. I could buy the sofa and loveseat right now, paid in full, without a problem.

But is that the best decision financially? If I were to keep this money in a 4.25% interest bank account instead, I could make a decent chunk of change through interest over the year. The only negative is if I somehow forgot to pay the balance in full before the year was up. Considering I have never had a late payment on, well, anything, I would consider that fairly unlikely.

Either way, I know I cannot wait to relax in something besides a twelve year old, faded mustard couch missing back pillows and sporting hanging metal staples.

As the holiday season approaches, I am sure many of you with friends or family living far distances away are already dreading the inevitable tasks of getting that massive stack of gifts shipped from your house to theirs. Sure, your grandmother would absolutely love that antique rocking chair, but there’s just something wrong about paying more to get a gift to someone than on the gift itself.

So how do you avoid spending the majority of your gift money on shipping? All you need is a little comparison shopping and a bit of online form wrangling, and you’ll save a bundle sending that bundle. Here are some tips in chronological order:

When Shopping:

• If you are looking at buying a gift but worried about the shipping cost, consider buying it online from a retailer such as Amazon.com. That way, you can have the gift directly shipped to the person (including gift wrapping, for a slight surcharge of course) at much lower a cost than if you had shipped the gift yourself.
• If you have to buy the gift locally, remember that shipping costs aren’t based on weight alone. All carriers charge extra for very large packages, or oddly shaped packages which are referred to a “non-machinable”. Be sure to check the carrier’s website to see if the gift you are looking at might be the victim of non-machinable surcharges.

Preparing the Shipment:

For boxes, often the box the item itself comes in suits the purpose perfectly. Just cover the box completely with some postal wrap, paper grocery bags, or something similar. If you need a new box, here are some options:

• If you plan on shipping via USPS priority or express mail, you can use their boxes for free! You can either pick some up at the local post office (though they often have a limited selection), or order them online and have them shipped to you for free. Just be sure to double check which boxes you are using, as the priority and express boxes look very similar but can only be used for that shipping method.
• Don’t forget about using flat rate boxes! The USPS offers two flat rate box sizes, and as long as you can stuff your gift into either of them, you can ship that box anywhere in the U.S. for $8.95 via priority mail. This can save a very large amount of money depending on the weight of the package and where it is being sent to. Note that while it’s unlikely you will be caught and thrown in jail, using these boxes for any other purpose (such as sending them via UPS or FedEx) is a federal crime. Also, the USPS will not accept them for anything besides the priority or express mail.
• Often you can find free or cheap boxes online at sites such as Craigslist, BoxQuest, or Boomerang Boxes. You can also order boxes online from companies such as ULine - just be prepared to pay high shipping costs (a bit ironic, no?)
• If you’re feeling adventurous, you can often find loads of extra boxes outside of retail stores. Might be worth checking next time you’re buying something there, but I wouldn’t exactly recommend staking out their trash.
• If all else fails, boxes at places such as Staples and Wal-Mart are somewhat reasonably priced. Just make sure you avoid boxes at actual shipment stores such as MailBoxes Etc, which would be happy to charge you $5 for a small box.
• In general, you are better off going to your local office supply store for other packaging supplies compared to buying online. Unless you are buying in massive quantities, the savings online just aren’t there – especially when you then have to pay for shipping. In general, bubble wrap is a good choice as it is reasonably priced but easy to package with. Newspaper is always an option, but never underestimate the trials and tribulations a fragile package might endure on the way to its recipient – so don’t skimp on packaging!
• Stumped for ideas for wrapping paper? Whimsy makes high quality, unique wrapping paper. You could also print out your own wrapping paper in Microsoft word, or if you’re feeling green this Christmas, make wrapping paper by recycling magazines.

Shipping Methods

• The very first step is to compare prices online. Make sure you know the weight of your package, the size (though as long as it is machinable, as discussed earlier, the shipping price shouldn’t differ based on size), and of course the destination. As a general rule of thumb, often the USPS will be cheaper for lighter packages traveling shorter distances. Here are direct links to the various shipping calculators:
  • USPS Shipping Calculator
  • UPS Shipping Calculator
  • FedEx Shipping Calculator

  On that note – where’s our flashy, easy to use, shipping rate comparison tool? I was surprised to find there is no Shippr.com.

• When calculating postage, you may notice that the weight of your shipment does not actually effect the cost all that much. Instead, the zip code you are sending to and the speed at which it is delivered has much more of an impact on the price. One handy tip to know is that the USPS only charges extra per pound, not per ounce. So if you’re one half-ounce over four pounds on that box you’re sending, see if there’s any way to lighten the load. You could save yourself 15%-45% on the shipment cost!
• If you’re shipping your holiday presents in November, then you will most likely be looking for the cheapest options: Parcel Post for the USPS, and Ground for FedEx and UPS. It is worth mentioning that USPS Priority Mail is often just a tad more expensive than first class, but can get there twice as fast and allows you to use their free boxes. UPS and FedEx ground generally deliver by four to five days.
• If you need to rush shipment, all three services offer variations of guaranteed two day or overnight delivery. Just don’t be surprised that you’ll have to pay a pretty penny for it.

Sending the Package

USPS:

• The most straightforward way to send is to simply bring the package to the post office, of course. Unfortunately, we all know what that can involve: Long lines of cranky people and equally cranky postal service employees.
• To avoid long lines, pay for shipping using an automated system and print the label yourself. This is easily accomplished online at the USPS site using a credit card. The only tricky part is making sure you pay for enough shipping to cover the weight of your package. Remember that you can often round up with no extra cost and give yourself a bit of leeway.
• Besides paying online, a fair number of post offices also have automated machines now, which besides having much less of a wait also are open for extended hours. It’s as simple as placing the box on the scale and using the touchscreen to fill out some basic information.
• If you have printed and paid for a label, you can bring your package to the post office and just leave it on the desk – no need to wait through the entire line! Even better, you can have the post office pickup the package for free. Just fill out that form, leave the package by your door, and it will go out with mail the next day. Note that pickup is only free with priority or express mail, but as discussed earlier the often negligible price difference between parcel and priority mail is worth it for this alone.

FedEx or UPS:

• Both carriers list drop-off locations online. Remember to see what shipping methods the location supports (some will only ship express packages), and that drop boxes sometimes have limits on what size and weight packages they can accept.
• If you have a Staples, Mailboxes Etc, or Kinkos nearby, chances are they send out FedEx or UPS. However, make absolutely sure you do not pay for shipping at the store. Print out and pay for a label online, so that you can just drop off the package. If you pay in the store, you will pay a 30-50% markup on the actual shipping cost!

Tracking, Insurance and Damage Claims

• The USPS offers at tracking number, but this number only serves as a means to tell if the package has been delivered or not. It does not tell you the estimated delivery date, nor where the package is in the mail syste. On the other hand, FedEx and UPS both provide detailed tracking information on the package.
• All services offer insurance, though generally insurance through USPS is more expensive than the other carriers.
• You will hear hundreds of horror stories with damages or losses about any of the carriers. Generally, due to their detailed tracking, FedEx and UPS often are able to assist with lost packages better than the USPS.

Now, you can go into the holiday gift confident that you won’t be giving all your money to postal carrier. Stumped for a gift idea? Check out HappyCat Lights - personalized art as lamps. Get your favorite photograph, picture or design hand-carved for the perfect unique gift. Starting as low as $45, with 10% off using the coupon “moneymythos”.

Sometimes, you just have to shake your head at how unbelievably kind fate can be.

At the beginning of this week, my business line received a call from, of all places, Fuddruckers. You know those glass bowls you drop business cards into for a free lunch? Well, for the first time in our life my wife and I dropped a card in. This was a call letting us know we had won a lunch for not two, but fifteen people. It was a very nice surprise to start the week with.

I should be honest here and, at the risk of insulting any Boston readers, mentioned I was still recovering from the Cleveland Indian’s loss to the Red Sox in the ALCS. Yes, I live in Boston. But it’s hard to steal a team’s affection away from a Cleveland hometown boy.

So the call from Fuddruckers helped brighten my mood a bit. Then, on Wednesday night I checked my email right before going to bed. I saw an email with the title “You won!”, and almost threw it into my spam box before noticing it was from Flexo over at Consumerism Commentary, one of the personal finance blogs I read every day. To be honest, at first I couldn’t figure out what this might be referring to. I opened the email to find out I had won the contest he had posted last week for a free Sumo Lounge “Omni” chair – basically, a luxury, incredibly comfortable, massive bean bag chair.

What a surprise this was! The last contest I won, in all seriousness, was when I was eight years old, opened a pack of Bubble Yum gum, and won a shower radio. Not only was I excited about winning, but I also really wanted the prize! From some reviews I’ve read, it’s a great thing to lounge on when playing video games. Even better, my wife is a huge fan of lying on the floor when reading, so at least now she can be more comfortable doing it. Thanks Flexo!

Then yesterday came the biggest news of all. A few days ago, I posted about living on a salary where a bonus accounts for a large portion of your yearly pay. Well this week was our fiscal end of the year bonus. My boss had mentioned several times that this was going to be a nice bonus, thanks due to a new, expensive publication we started and then sold out of a week later.

I can’t really say the amount of the bonus, as I don’t like revealing too many exact figures about my financial life, but I can say this: It was the largest check I have received in my life, and was more than three times the amount I had expected. When I received the check, my hands started shaking and I was having trouble getting oxygen. Funny how the body responds like that, even to good news!

This check hammered home one of the things I love about the company I work for: They appreciate and reward hard work. This past month, I have stayed late a large amount of days, and worked over two weekends, all in preparation for launching our new website. I think they noticed that, and besides simply telling me their appreciation, also expressed it in this bonus.

Now here comes the challenge: Budgeting this very large sum when I had only planned for receiving one-third of it. I threw around some numbers last night and came up with this plan:

• 30% to my dad, for my college loan. This will put me within two years of paying off the remainder of my loan.
• 20% to reach my goal for my emergency savings!
• 20% towards a down payment for the used car I plan on purchasing in December (don’t worry – I have been planning on getting a new car for several months now. It wasn’t the bonus that made me decide to do this).
• 20% to pay off the remaining eight months on my current car’s loan.
• 10% to test my self control.

As for that last 10% … I am honestly not sure what to do with it. I know that it is really only fair for me to spend some of that on something I would really enjoy, either a nice night out with my wife or a new gadget from Best Buy. The problem is, I have been near-salivating over an Apple Powerbook for the past half year. I have decided to get rid of all my current computer equipment and replace it with a single laptop. The thing is, I don’t need a new computer right now. So it’s going to be a very difficult decision to make regarding how much to spend of that remaining 10%, and what to spend it on.

Oh, and one more thing. Last night I got to go see one of my favorite groups, Mates of State, play at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It was a great way to cap off a fantastic week.

A couple weeks ago, our company gave each employee $300 cash in an envelope. We drove to the mall and were told we had 1.5 hours to spend it all, or we had to give it back. What a very cool concept. Had I been given a $300 bonus, I most likely would have saved it. Instead, I was able to buy a few items I really wanted, but would never have bought with “my own” money.

Quite a few items came to mind when we were first told about this. I thought about splurging it all at Gamestop and buying six or so Xbox games, but I realized that was a bit excessive. I knew I wanted new running shoes, but didn’t want to fret with trying to find the right ones in an hour and a half. I briefly considered an I-Robot Vacuum, something I have always wanted, but unfortunately I just don’t think it would fare well in our apartment.

So here’s what I ended up with:

Shun 7″ Santoku Knife

I have wanted a nice, sharp knife for years now. When my wife and I got married, we received an expensive Cuisinart knife set, as well as an electric knife sharpener. I don’t recall the chef’s knife ever being particularly sharp, and the cheap knife sharpener probably didn’t help, but as of now it can’t cut, well, anything.

So I looked for the best knife I could find. First, I decided to go with a Santoku over a standard Chef’s knife, as they are supposedly more adept at cutting things like onions and peppers, but can’t handle cutting bones. Considering I never even knew you could cut a bone with a knife, I was happy enough with the Santoku.

As for the brand, I originally looked at Wusthof, the famous German knife brand. That was all well and good, but when I read that Shun was a Japanese company and had supposedly perfected the Santoku, I just had to have it.

And let me tell you – cooking with it feels like cheating. It’s an incredible knife, and I’m going to be sure to take care of it like a first born child.

Cost: $123 - $23 sale price - $14 gift card = $86

Keurig B60 K-Cup Coffee Brewer

I love coffee, and I need it. I drink, on average, three cups a day – probably about the norm for your standard office worker. In fact, I often have it around 9 or 10 at night recently, as I can’t seem to stay up past then without caffeine (yet I’m asleep thirty seconds after my head hits the pillow, no matter how recently I drank the coffee).

Anyway, I don’t drink coffee all that often at home. In the morning my commute is only seven minutes long, and at work I have access to a professional version of what I bought here. However, when I do need coffee at home (mostly during the weekends), I couldn’t find a reasonable way to make it. The problem is that buying a pound of coffee left me with old beans, as I didn’t use it quick enough. Making coffee in a coffeemaker left me with several cups extra, as my wife doesn’t drink coffee. I tried a French press, but didn’t love the taste and it was a pain.

I absolutely love this thing though. Thirty seconds to a cup of excellent coffee, especially compared to the terrible Dunkin Donuts I had gotten accustomed too. My wife even loves the machine for the hot chocolate and instant hot water for tea.

A bit excessive? Yes. I also wouldn’t have bought it if I drank coffee every day, as the cups for it can get expensive. But for my moderate usage, it’s perfect.

Cost: $150 – 20% coupon = $120

Dead Rising

Who doesn’t love killing a massive mob of zombies?

Cost: $30

I also picked up a cutting board and pizza stone, bringing the total to $300. The whole experience was a blast – we even got a nice lunch at The Cheesecake Factory after.

As for my real, end of year bonus I get in two weeks? Straight to savings!

Emergency Fund: First, I have decided to change the amount of money saved in my emergency fund. While I was originally aiming for $10,000, I now feel as though $8000 is a reasonable enough amount on which my wife and I could live for at least several months should both of us be out of work. However, I feel very secure in my job, and when my wife starts working again it seems fairly unlikely we would both be out of work at once. Also, if worse comes to worse we have two wonderfully supportive families who could help out, though I doubt it would come to that.

Unfortunately, the actual amount in my emergency fund has not changed for the past few months. First, we had to pay $270 to fill 1/3rd of our oil tank. No, this should normally not be considered an emergency. However, our finances are still relatively tight with my wife not working, and I had forgotten to budget this expense in. The second reason is because of what I just mentioned: Without a second salary, we can only save money when I get my bonus checks. However, I will be getting a bonus in a week and a half, so I hope to see that green bar on the right get even closer to reaching its goal.

Student Loan: I am happy with the progress I am making on this. First, even though as I mentioned finances have been somewhat tight, I decided to increase my standard monthly payments to my dad from $300 to $400. Second, I feel confident in my ability to send at least another $1000 each bonus, which means my average monthly payment is about $730.

Lastly, I am interviewing next week for a part time job, the proceeds of which will go mostly towards this loan. That, on top of the fact that when my wife starts working again I will be able to increase the loan by yet another few hundred, means I can be looking at paying the rest of this $30,000 debt off in less than two years!

Car: With only eight payments left, I am close to finishing paying for my car, which I originally financed back in 2003. It’s tempting to pay it all off now, but considering I pay a paltry 1.9% interest rate I don’t see any reason to hurry it up.

Alas, it seems as though I won’t be finished with car payments completely. My wife and I have faced the harsh reality of living outside a city and trying to share one car. Unfortunately, unless her job schedule matches magically with mine, it’s nearly impossible. We are therefore looking at buying another car late this year. I’ll have more details on this soon, but we may be able to purchase my parent’s leased three year old, 17000 mile Honda Accord for an incredibly reasonable $15,000.

House and Retirement Savings: Alas, I am still a ways off from being able to contribute anything meaningful to either of these goals, so I have decided to remove them for the time being.

When I was hired, I was told an interesting fact. Everyone at my company gets the exact same hourly rate. What sets, say, customer service apart from the president is the amount of their bonus check each quarter. Actually, this check isn’t really so much of a bonus as it is a different way of paying salary, as our “actual” salary is far below the norm for most positions here.

The mentality behind this is that the company is able to give bigger and better bonuses when the company performs well. I do have to say that I definitely feel a desire to help the company succeed when I know that I will directly profit from its success. On the other hand, bonuses can be smaller when the company isn’t doing as well – even when that is due to forces beyond our control, i.e. the stock market (my company is involved in investments and so is affected by people’s desire to invest).

Besides the issue of the actual amount of the bonuses, there are also distinct advantages and disadvantages to being paid this way.

The main disadvantage is obvious: It can make it very difficult to budget. When my wife was working, we had enough money each month to easily pay our bills and expenses every month. But since she quit in July, we are getting by just about by the skin of our teeth each month on my base salary.

As a quick aside, I have to mention how much the emergency fund helps in this regard, both psychology and as an actual resource. When I had to pay $800 to fix my car’s air conditioning system in July (yes, apparently even Honda Civics can break), I was able to draw that out of my emergency fund without a problem, instead of having to hope I was getting a bonus soon to pay for it.

There are some other smaller disadvantages as well. I miss out on a few months of interest by only getting paid my bonus once every three months, though honestly that’s not too big of a deal. Depending on the timing, it can make it harder to contribute the max to my Roth IRA, though again I’m still not at the point where an IRA is my biggest savings goal.

So you might wonder where the advantage might lie in all of this. Well, after being at this job for ten months, I have learned to live on the base salary I am paid. So when I get these sizable checks every few months, what do I do? I save them! I am not someone who splurges on a whim, so I am able to put this money to good use.

Currently, I split each bonus check halfway between the loan to my dad and emergency savings. It feels great to send my dad a nice sized check every three months on top of the monthly money I send him. In fact, with the recent increase I decided to make in my monthly payments to him, I’m now paying $800 a month when you take into account the bonuses. That means I will have my college loan paid off to him in just over two years, though with a prospect of a part-time job for me, and my wife actively looking for jobs again, I hope to have it paid off even sooner.

So in a way, I love being paid like this. If I did get paid my full salary every month, I might very well have the discipline to save it – but I’m not quite as confident about that as I am about my ability to save these bonus checks.

Of course, not everyone in this situation might be able to pay their monthly expenses using only their base salary. If this was the situation, here is what I would recommend: First, calculate how much extra money you need per month for your expenses. So say you are about $200 short each month when being paid only your base salary.

Next, set up a new savings account. You could also use an account that you either never (or rarely) withdraw from. Each quarter (assuming you get quarterly bonuses), deposit three times the amount of money you need each month from your bonus check to this savings account.

Now each month you can make a guilt free withdrawal from that account for $200 to help with your monthly expenses. As for the rest of that bonus check? Save it!

I was relayed a story from my sister that I thought was worth mentioning. She was at Best Buy a few months ago, and purchased a CD. At the register, she was asked if she would like eight free issues to Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly. “They’re free?”, she asked, and was told yes, they were free, no strings attached. So she signed her name on the computer pad to pay for CD, and left.

I am sure you can tell what is coming next. A week ago, she sees two bills totaling $60 on her credit card for subscriptions to Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly.

Now you could argue that she should have read through the small fine-print receipt she received more carefully, but I feel as though the fact that you are agreeing to a recurring magazine subscription should be made painfully clear to the consumer.

Almost worse though is the way Best Buy employees sell these subscriptions, often straight up lying to the consumer in order to sell more magazines. It is also difficult to hold them accountable, two months later and often without the receipt which might show the employee’s name.

Here is the important part of the story: My sister was able to call both companies and have them charge back the $60 to her card by complaining about the way she was sold the magazine. So if you or someone you know is involved in a similar situation, do not underestimate what you might accomplish by calling the company and giving them an earful (politely, of course).

At the beginning of this week, the investment advisory service I worked for posted this notice to their subscribers:

“We believe yesterday’s deeper-than-expected Fed rate cut, along with the market’s super-strong reaction, has kicked off the market’s next bull run. What impressed us most was the significant power shown in the broad market; up volume on the NYSE totaled nearly 30 times that of down volume, while advancing stocks outnumbered decliners by more than 9-to-1. (We get our figures from the Wall Street Journal, FYI.)

These are highly unusual readings … and history tells us they’re very bullish. Jason Goepfert of sentimentrader.com wrote that there have only been seven other times when up volume swamped down volume by 25-to-1 or more. Three months after these seven occasions, the S&P was up an average of 9.4%, and better yet, there was minimal drawdown during that time (read: the market didn’t pull back much at all after those big up days; it usually continued higher).”

At the end of the week, the markets closed – ending the best week of gains for 2007. And what a week it was! One of my core holdings, Baidu (BIDU), the “Google of China”, is up over 12%. In fact, because of its strong performance, my portfolio nearly doubled in value and is now up 22% for the year. I am sure I’m not the only one who benefited that much from this week either.

I am a huge fan of money management software. Believe it or not, one of the highlights of my day is coming home from work and updating my finances in Quicken. Unfortunately, Quicken has not improved much over the years, and still leaves a bit to be desired. It’s somewhat bloated and can run a bit slow, especially with online updates, and the reporting features are not as intuitive as they should be. One of the most annoying changes to Quicken recently was how they started charging banks for the direct connect feature, meaning that for most banks you have to log in and download your recent transactions manually.

So not surprisingly, I was excited when I was invited to the beta for Mint, a new online money management site in a similar vein to Yodlee and Wesabe. I have been using it for a few weeks now, and with the public launch yesterday am excited to publish my review for it.

Mint isn’t necessarily a competitor to Quicken, but instead tries to approach money management from a different angle. The basic premise of Mint is getting a handle on your current money situation, whether it be your bank balance or recent spending habits, all from a single internet portal. By just doing that, it already has a huge leg up on actual software in that it’s accessible from anywhere. It does not attempt to act as the be all and end all of money management, so don’t expect it to necessarily replace the current juggernauts Quicken and Money so much as to serve as a supplement to them.

Overview
So let’s get down to the details. When you log into Mint, you are taken to an overview screen that lists your “financial health” on the left (your cash accounts versus your debt accounts), with alerts, spending trends, and ways to save on the right. This screen alone is a good way to get a quick snapshot of your finances. One of the greatest benefits of Mint is consolidating all of your financial information, so that you can spend ten seconds logging into Mint instead of ten minutes visiting all your banks and credit cards to get the same information.

Mint’s Alerts function takes advantage of the fact that this is indeed online money management, in that it constantly monitors your accounts for low balances or credit limits. My favorite feature was alerting me whenever a transaction over a certain amount occurred (either for a single transactions or for the day), which is a great way to get an instant notice if anything suspicious is occurring to your accounts.

Transactions
The next page in Mint is the Transactions page. This page, not surprisingly, lists recent transactions from all of your accounts. You can also tell it to display transactions from only specific accounts. Each transaction is automatically assigned a category, based on either a guess by Mint itself (which is usually fairly accurate), or on what you last categorized that transaction as. Categories are very important to accurately assess your spending habits, so it’s also important that Mint provides easy means to categorize transactions.

Mint has a list of about 100 categories to choose from. While the categories and subcategories make sense for the most part, it’s a bit frustrating to not be able to create new categories. If you do need to mark something in a way that you can’t through categories, Mint does provide the means to label transactions anything you want. This is also the closest Mint comes to providing classes. For instance, you may have a category for meals, but want to label some meals as business expenses.

Spending Trends
The Spending Trends page starts by showing a pie graph of your recent expenses, for which you can change the date range easily. It also shows bar graphs on your spending in select categories, such as entertainment and shopping. The simplicity of this page is its strength, as it gives you a very good overall view of your spending habits. On the other hand, it is the extent of Mint’s reporting features, but to be fair I don’t know if I could expect much more out of online money management.

Ways To Save
The next tab is Ways to Save. I like the idea behind this, and I understand it being a great way to draw people in to use the system, but after spending thirty seconds looking it over the first time I used Mint, I haven’t gone back. It did give some solid advice, such as saving money by using DSL instead of Cable, but I already knew everything it was suggesting. It also incorrectly reported that I was getting 0 interest in my online checking, and 0 rewards from my credit card, but those just may be kinks that are being worked out.

Accounts
The last tab, Accounts, is where you can add, remove, and configure your checking, savings, and credit card accounts. This is a very straightforward process, as adding an account simply requires you to enter your current login information. You never have to input your credit card number or checking account number.

Mint supports more than 3,000 banks and credit cards. In other words, if you use a major national chain chances are they are supported, while it may be more of a flip of a coin for local branches. I had no trouble adding my accounts for HSBC Direct and American Express. Citizens Bank and Chase were different matters though. One of the challenges online money management sites have faced recently is the increased security implemented at banks. Citizens Bank has a multi-step login process which includes image verification, and sites like Yodlee and now Mint seem to have trouble stepping through that. I also had trouble getting my most recent transactions from my Chase credit card, though according to their help forum they were working on that.

The site as a whole functions fairly well. The interface is very well done in that it is intuitive to use and looks beautiful. However, the delay switching between tabs can be very frustrating at times, with it taking five to ten seconds to load a new tab (the site is extremely slow at the moment due to the public launch, but this was an issue during all of the beta).

Security
Most people are worried about the security, and that’s understandable as your entire financial life is now accessible from one site. However, the main security issue is the password you use to log in with, which is a concern at any site. Even if a hacker does gain access to your account, all they can do is view only the same information you see at Mint. None of your financial information is stored at Mint, but is instead sent to online banking powerhouse Yodlee. Yodlee is used by a huge number of financial institutions, so it is possible some of your banking information is stored there even if you don’t use Mint. Overall, I feel comfortable with the security methods Mint uses.

Wish List
Mint has been in development for a long time now, and has a very good number of features built in. However, there is a very long wish list of features, some of which you could argue are essential to money management. The first, I would say, are personalized alerts. Mint does a good job of telling you when your bank account is low, or when a credit card is due. However, it can’t remind you of bills to pay. As I have nearly a dozen bills each month, my main use of Quicken is for it to keep me updated on which bills are paid and which are coming up. This sole missing feature alone would prevent me from using Mint as my main source of money management.

I also would require some type of export utility before I ever replaced Quicken with Mint. I backup Quicken daily, and feel secure knowing I have a categorized history of my finances for the past seven years. All I would need is some sort of standardized backup option (such as a comma separated) for my peace of mind.

Other wanted features include splitting transaction categories, renaming accounts, manual transactions (such as cash), importing data (such as old Quicken accounts), and most notably budgeting. It is somewhat odd that they decided to not include budgeting into a product features ways to save and spending habits.

Conclusion
Will I use Mint? Assuming they fix Chase credit cards, and are able to keep page loads under five seconds, then yes. Unlike Quicken, it requires minimal upkeep, and even if I completely ignore the categories I can at least get a quick overall view of my finances and transactions. However, like I mentioned above, I will have to use it as a supplement to Quicken until, and if, they add in some additional features. For some people, Mint may do all they need. Other people may already be using Yodlee or Wesabe, and continue to. I’ll be checking Mint during lunch at work, updating Quicken after dinner, and still looking for the quintessential piece of money management software that will make that part of my life easier.

All screenshots are from Mint’s feature page, not my actual accounts