Mint.com – Financies just got really shiny

I know, the hype is over… Everyone else has already reviewed Mint. So what? Maybe I’ve held off on trying Mint.com for a while, I’m quite happy with my current financial management program, even if it is rather basic. Anyhow, I broke down, registered an account and gave it a try.

Long story short, Mint is hot. But if you need a little bit more incentive to try it, here’s the break down.

The good…

• Slick interface, staring at numbers has never been more attractive
• Wide range of banks and credit cards are support
• Automatically downloads transactions and categorizes your spending (it’s not always correct, but you can easily change things)
• Great range of information is available at a glance, you login and right away you can see the key numbers for all your accounts
• Ridiculously easy to use

The bad…

• While E*Trade Bank is supported, my brokerage account was not imported (they don’t currently support brokerage accounts)
• No manual import of financial record, no .CSV or .QIF support… nothing, I have a checking account with a local bank that doesn’t offer online banking (gasp!), so how am I supposed to include that information?
• Doesn’t work with UBT.com. I was somewhat surprised when I searched for Union Bank and Trust and actually found it… however, my elation was short lived as it then informed me the site “must be down for maintenance” because it couldn’t log in. So I checked, nope, works fine. Grr…
• Their Ways to Save feature has a long way to go. It tried to get me to switch from my Chase card to a Citi card, a card with twice the interest rate of my current card (not that I carry a balance on my Chase) claiming I could save $239 dollars a year, how you ask? Simple, Citi was going to give me bonus miles just for signing up… yeah… about that…

The could be better…

• Again, brokerage support is a key for me…
• More control over your accounts, I’d really like to see the ability to make a payment on your credit card using Mint.

Overall, I would highly recommend you give Mint a shot.