There are a lot of great online budgeting tools and software out there that can make keeping track of your finances easy peesy. Given all the technology out there, you shouldn’t have a good excuse for not staying on top of your money, not even laziness anymore, as most sites pull in the info automatically. One of the most famous budgeting tools is Mint.com. Rather than I babble on about it, I thought I’d let one of my readers, Ernest, tell you why he loves Mint.com, and how an average person, just like you could go from maxing out your credit card to saving for retirement (and a house!) in no time.

1) What did your finances look like before you got on Mint.com? Did you have a budget of any sort before joining?

I lucked out by starting with Mint early. I believe I started using it in the sophomore year in college when both my income and expenses were fairly low. I didn’t have any real budgets but I wanted to be able to keep better track of my spending.

2) How long did it take you to get your Mint.com account up and running?

I’ve always done the majority of my banking online, so it took about a minute to set up my Mint account. Mint works by pulling the transaction details from your credit, checking, and investment accounts and pulling all the information into one interface.

3) Explain the transformation in your finances and the results you’ve seen.

As I’ve started working Mint has been very useful for budgeting, but also for keeping track of due dates across multiple credit cards. If I ever have unexpected fees I’m notified immediately. And when I lost my wallet, I was able to quickly account for fraudulent use of my credit card using Mint’s transaction history.

4) For someone who’s never had a budget or given much of a look at their finances, how easy is Mint.com to use and how much will it change their life?

For someone new to personal finance opening a Mint account can be a real eye opener. I can’t guarantee it will change your behavior, but it will provide the insights you need to meet savings goals, pay down debts, or put away money for that big vacation! And best of all its as easy to set up as logging in to Facebook.

5) Do you have any concerns of privacy issues or having all your info in one place?

Mint uses the same level of encryption as bank websites and requires strong passwords. Bringing everything to one place is probably the greatest benefit. I tend to have a lot of accounts (checking, savings, investing, retirement) and having to check each individually would be a huge hassle.

6) For someone who has never used a budget, how easy is it to get a grasp of?

For the budgeting particularly, you can set budgets at any level (Food & Dining, Restaurants, Lunch at Work), and they give you national comparisons and your own past trends as guidelines. The budgets you have set show up on the main page and it shows the pace of your spending within the month and color codes it accordingly. It also gives you a bit of a nag whenever spending for a certain category is higher than usual.

7) Favorite feature of Mint.com?

My favorite feature is the trend analysis. I like being able to compare my spending across different periods and watch my net worth grow!

Using a site like Mint.com can work wonders for your finances. They’ve got great big picture tools, awesome ways to track your spending habits and methods of helping you save up for a financial goal. Personal finance ultimately though is about finding what works for you.

Thanks for checking out the article. Here are some other budgeting articles you might enjoy:

Take the first step…make a budget!

Where does all my money go?

Budgeting after you’ve broken the bank

Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems. @YoungMonFinance, no problems