Mint.com Fitness

Can I just say - OMG Mint.com has a fitness tab!!!! I'm so excited! I know most of you probably don't have fitness tabs yet (neener neener neener) - they sent me some email asking me to refer it to three friends in order to get it. But it's there, and it's fun, and slightly buggy still.

I've been trying it out for about a month now. I'm slightly confused by how it works. It tells me that I should have a three month emergency fund. Okay great - I already have one and it's in straight cash in a savings account. But apparently it doesn't recognize it? Last month I failed at having a 3 month emergency fund... maybe it takes three months to register it? I have no idea. Maybe it's a bug or maybe I'm not using it right. It took me like a month to figure out that I have to not budget for how much I save every month in order to have a thing on the right hand side of the planning tab to say how much I was saving each month. I still put it as part of my budget b/c I like to see it get filled up each month.

The avoid bank fees one kind of urks me too. For my Schwab checking account - the ATM charges me fees - but Schwab refunds them at the end of the month. But Mint doesn't know this and therefore I will always fail at avoiding bank fees. It's a great fitness goal to have - but I have no idea how it would know what fee refunds referred to random stuff vs. ATM stuff like my Schwab account.

I would love to see mint do some longer term work on savings and savings goals. I budget in a saving every month as a personal tab to make sure that I hit my savings goal each month. There's not really a place to put stuff like a savings goal. The fitness tab and the saving thing on the right of the planning tab are kind of first steps. But instead of setting a goal for yourself and measuring yourself against that goal - you kind of have to ghetto around the system to set that goal. The problem too is that I have two different things I consider savingish - both the amount I put away in a cash account and the amount I put away into longer term investments (not retirement accounts.) I don't have savings well organized in my head - and Mint seems to be able to take the jumble in my head to something the makes good logical sense. Please Mint.com, please find my car keys for me tomorrow morning (and maybe Kyle's passport - St. Anthony couldn't even help with that one.)

Oh BTW What happened with the line on the planning tab that ran vertical? I loved that thing. It took me like three or four months to figure out what the hell it was - but once I realized it marked how far along in the month we were - so it could like line up with monthly budgeting things - like my Starbucks or grocery budget (yes I have a Starbucks budget each month) - I was in love. But with the newer design it's gone :-(

All in all - I like the fitness tab - it's fun. I get arbitrary point values. The points don't actually add up (yet?) to anything. But it feels like a short sweet financial check list for the month with the little green circles on the right. Since I'm a list person and like crossing things off the list (yes - I do put things on the list that have already been done just to cross them out) it feels good. Can I win like a low interest rate account or something? Now that would be AWESOME! But I guess if you do all the financial fitness steps you should improve your credit score which would get you a better interest rate... but maybe you could market/sell that as the benefit of your fitness page? I *might* buy that (if I had a few beers first.)

I'm still getting used to the recent redesign and learning how the new tools work. I would love that little vertical line back. I love the tabs. The new trending is really great - it's awesome to be able to break it down between months and categories - you can definitely see the data from a different angle which is helpful and enlightening. I learned that my biggest category after my rent was travel. Ridiculous - and at the same time - a conscientious choice to chose family, friends, and fun over little crap right now.

Thanks mint. It's been very helpful. Two years ago I would not have been able to see the data and make the short term choices to enable the longer term goals. Plus you've recommended some good accounts for me to open. I hope those made you a little money in the process.