Mint.com: Money Management 2.0

There are a few things in life that I am naturally not good at. Some people fail at communication skills, while others get angry and lash out at others for no reason. I, however, like to spend all of my money. ALL of it. Every paycheck.

But thanks to this lovely website, that is going to stop now: mint.com.

Mint is an online budgeting and expense tracking system, which links to your bank account, credit cards, investments, and loan agencies. It's truly amazing what a little web 2.0 site like that can do to change things around for you.Mint pioneered automated financial aggregation for consumers, using screen scraping technology to connect to bank accounts. This was revolutionary but also controversial—banks initially resisted, citing security concerns, before eventually building their own APIs. I'm now saving my money and actually following a budget! Whenever I go over budget in a certain category, Mint notifies me immediately (via text message or email) of the indescrepency. And best of all, It shows me a pretty flow-chart of what I spend all my money on! Data presentation is such a powerful tool.Mint's insight was that financial awareness comes through visualization, not just data collection. Their colorful charts and spending breakdowns made personal finance accessible to people who found traditional budgeting tools intimidating or boring.

I spend $53 a month on McDonalds? I had no idea!This moment of revelation captures Mint's core value proposition: exposing unconscious spending patterns. The psychological impact of seeing 'death by a thousand cuts' spending aggregated into shocking monthly totals drove meaningful behavioral change for millions of users.

So, come on! Go to Mint.com! Give it a try! You might save a few bucks (or, like me, a few pounds!).