Financial consolidation tools are key to understanding your spending habits and tracking your net worth over time. It can be hard to get a full picture of where you stand financially when your savings account may be with Marcus while your brokerage account may be with Schwab or Fidelity, which is why services like Mint.com are helpful to help you visualize your entire financial picture.

Mint is one of the oldest and most popular personal finance tools on the market. Until recently, they have only had a free version but we've heard a premium version will be coming soon. Whether you are a Mint novice or expert, Smart Sister Finance has some tips to help you to get the most out of Mint and stay on track financially.

Budgeting: Setting up a budget category, such as groceries, is a quick and easy way to stay on-track and under budget. Each category allows you to assign a dollar limit and, if you sign up for notifications, you'll get a text or email alert any time you're getting close to exceeding that category's budget.

To properly set up your budget, you'll want to start by auditing your "Transactions" tab. Review your purchase descriptions and the category Mint has assigned to that purchase to ensure everything is properly categorized. If you notice a particular purchase is mislabeled, you can assign a new category and set a rule. See below for an example:

It's important to regularly review your transactions if you plan to utilize the budgeting feature. Mint is a great piece of technology, but it does need help from you to function effectively. If Mint is unable to assign a category, it will default to "uncategorized," and then you'll be able to filter and update the category as needed. Updating your uncategorized categories is easy - you’ll simply edit the description and select “Always rename X and categorize as Y.” You don’t need to rename transactions unless you’d like to, but once you’ve created a rule to always categorize a certain transaction as  Y, the platform will retroactively and proactively apply that category. This is a quick and easy update to make that will help to keep your dashboard organized in almost real-time.

Once you've got your transactions appropriately assigned, setting up a budget is as easy as selecting a category, listing an amount, and deciding if you want to start the following month's budget with the previous month's unused budget (if any). 

Goals:  It's easy to track money goals and progress in the platform. Common goals include "Buy a Home," and "Save for Retirement," but you can personalize this to your needs. Mint will automatically set projected dates for when you will meet listed goals based on your initial amount and monthly contributions. If you attach individual accounts to your Mint goals, the tool will automatically visualize your progress for you. These individual goal accounts can be brokerage accounts, a retirement account, or a checking or savings account. 

Mint will ask you about the goal (such as "Take a Trip" below) and if you have an account already open to fund the goal. Mint will also help you to estimate how much you'll need to save to meet your goals, which you can adjust as necessary. 

Trends: They say ignorance is bliss, but not when it comes to your spending habits. The Trends tab will break down your spending by category, merchant, and by tag over time. Mint will give you the option to tag a transaction as "reimbursable" or "tax-related" (refer to image in “Budget” section above ). While tags are helpful, I find that keeping an eye on which category is outpacing the others is most important when taking control of your financial well-being. I had no idea I was spending so much on home and dining until I saw the proportion of those categories on my Trends pie chart!

Net Worth: Tracking this metric is key to building wealth. Net worth = assets - liabilities and serves as a remarkable data point for understanding where you are on your financial journey. Ideally, your assets will outweigh your liabilities (forms of debt) so you have a positive net worth. If you have a negative net worth, what you owe is outpacing what you own. Mint provides a chart for you to visualize your net worth over time. Ideally the trend line will continue to move up and to the right as you use the concept of leverage to invest in yourself, although Net Worth can vary as you move through the stages of your life. 

Have other questions about how to make Mint more effective for you? Drop us a line at info@smartsisterfinance.com

Stay tuned for more financial tips and tricks!

Erin Dunne