Twenty Something Sense

Today’s blog comes from a class-mate I met while at Virginia Tech. I met Jonathan through several organizations on campus where he generally played some type of leadership role. On top of it all he managed to beat me out (crush me) for Virginia Tech’s homecoming king in 2003/4, but we won’t hold that against him. Today Jonathan talks to us about budgeting and a couple of the great sites out there to help you which you may remember from some comments left on a previous post.

Fresh and Minty
by Jonathan Gentry

Ok.. so this isn’t about mint gum or a refreshing mojito, but I didn’t dare to use the word “budget” in the title. Let’s face it, budgets sound scary. If you’re like me, you skated through college on whatever you could make at a part-time job and what your parents deposited in your account every now and then, so budgeting was just a matter of keeping your checking account balance above zero, and your credit card bill, well, manageable at best. Now, with college behind us and a regular paycheck in hand, that still shouldn’t be a problem, right? Wrong.

Many people, not just those in their twenties, struggle to manage their finances. It is somewhat of a daunting task for most, and among my friends the most common budgeting tool is Microsoft Excel. Great… I have to start with a blank workbook, come up with arbitrary amounts for what I spend on everything, and make sure I account for fun and entertainment.. gross. Maybe this works for some people, but for me, I would spend an hour or so setting up a simple workbook to track all of my expenses and try to stay committed, but it just didn’t happen. Month after month I found myself trying to play catch-up, all the while having no idea where my money was going.

Enter mint.com in my life. You may or may not of heard of this website yet, but it really has revolutionized online personal financial management. There are other sites such as wesabe.com and geezeo.com that offer similar functionality, but mint.com was the first one I heard about, so I continue to use it. Simply put, mint.com looks across all of your assets (cash, brokerage, retirement funds, etc.) and liabilities (credit cards, student loans, mortgage, etc.) and gives you a simple, clear view of your net worth. It was actually a funny experience the first time I realized that I have a “net worth” – we all do actually! Mint securely pulls all of your transactions across all of your accounts and helps you to make sense of where your money is going. You can set budget amounts, set alerts for over-budget spending among other things, and compare your spending to people in your city and other cities. I’m not saying that this one site will solve all of your financial problems, but it sure helped me to figure out where my money is going and pick areas to cut back. On top of all that, mint.com even makes recommendations for savings, checking, and credit card accounts that can save you money! Check out some of the key features of mint.com as well as how mint protects your privacy.

I encourage you to also check out wesabe.com and geezeo.com as well, as they offer similar features but also integrate more community features (“social finance,” if you will) that enable you to interact with others to offer and receive advice. What other helpful tools do you use?