This whole post is more or less a commercial, so feel free to skip it.

I became aware of Mint awhile ago from a friend on twitter, and I thought it looked pretty cool. I promptly filed it and forgot it. However, it came up again recently when I discovered that the site was co-created by a co-worker of mine’s son. So I took another look at it, and I have to admit that it’s pretty nifty.

Basically, it is a free online application that allows you to track your finances, similar to Quicken or some other financial software package. You hook it up to your accounts, like your bank accounts and your credit cards, and then it pulls in information from them. From there you can see all your balances and make nice graphs and charts, as well as categorize expenses and set up budgets. You can also get text or email reminders about things, like when your credit card is almost full, or if you’ve spent over your budget in a category.

Then, Mint takes this a step further. It can analyze your spending habits and not only give you tips about it, but it can actually search out deals for you. For example, it can suggest credit cards with lower interest rates, or savings accounts with higher interest rates. This is obviously how they make their money, by getting referral fees, but do you care? It’s good for everybody.

So anyway, I just thought it was a neat little site that some people might be interested in.

That is all.

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