------- Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine ------- Vol 2, Issue 23 This week is Kaylie's big first birthday. We had a party for her on Saturday. She was cute as a button, of course, in a little pink dress and white tights. Of course, she was as excited by the paper and boxes as she was the actual presents, but that's much to be expected, or so I've heard. Lisa and I have also decided she won't be getting more chocolate cake until at least her second birthday. That resolution came at about 3am while we watched our daughter running back and forth with what can only be termed an "excess of energy". All that aside, though, it shocked me how fast that first year had gone by. Wasn't it just yesterday that I first held her in my arms? It's time now to start looking to her future and how we are going to help her get there. I've heard I might even have to *pay* for a few things! That being the case, this issue's tool should come in handy. Read about it below. Oh, and I'm sure Lisa will have some new entries up on Kaylie's blog. Feel free to check it out at: http://kaylie.cyberdatasolutionsllc.com/blog.php ---------------------------------------------------------------- In This Issue... ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Article: A Mint on My Pillow 2. Shameless Self-Promotion 3. The Fine Print ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Article: A Mint on My Pillow ---------------------------------------------------------------- OK, I'll admit it, I'm a bit of a numbers guy. Figuring percentages in my head, doing math-based puzzles, even balancing a checkbook, are all good, clean fun for me (pity my wife). Still, for all of that, going through my bank statements and credit card records to analyze my spending habits can be a little tedious. Wouldn't it be cool to have an online tool that would help me with some of this? Enter Mint.com. When I first heard of Mint.com, I thought it was some sort of online version of Quicken. Not really. What it actually does is help you track your money flow automatically. It helps you analze your behaviors and develop budgets and financial plans for the future. Sign-up is pretty straight-forward. You don't even need to enter your name. Just use an email address for your login ID and you're pretty much set to go. Add the access information for your various bank accounts, credit cards, and investment accounts. Mint downloads and tracks the transactions from these accounts to give you a pretty accurate picture of where you stand at any given moment. One group for whom this would be helpful right away would be folks like my father-in-law, Joe Herness. He likes to check his accounts on a daily basis in order to make sure nothing odd is happening. He could even set up a series of alerts to track the activity on those accounts if he chose. Mint is a tool under constant development and, as such, is still missing some features that would be nice to have. One glaring omission is the inability to record your assets. I would really like to record the value of our house in the system. Right now it just records the mortgage, which makes our net worth significantly worse than it really is. Of course, if you aren't comfortable with online banking, then you might run into a few challenges with Mint. For every account that you want to track through the service, you have to have already set up online access to the account. Even those who have already done so may have qualms about letting Mint have access to their information. In this respect, at least, Mint seems to have gone to great lengths to ensure security on multiple levels. You can check out what they have to say at: http://www.mint.com/privacy/ Of course, ultimately it is up to you whether you are comfortable. For me, Mint has already proven quite useful. Not only is it a convenient place to have all of my current financial information, but just recently it sent me a reminder about a credit card payment that was coming up. I probably would have remembered, but it was nice to realize that I would have been OK, even my memory had failed me. Do you use any online banking tools? What have worked best for you? Drop me a line and let me know about your experiences at gpeters@cyberdatasolutionsllc.com. Copyright 2008, Greg Peters ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Shameless Self-Promotion ---------------------------------------------------------------- The "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-Zine is a production of Greg Peters, owner, chief cook, and bottlewasher of Cyber Data Solutions. CDS has been helping website designers develop better web presence for their clients for more than a decade. Visit us on the Web at www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your webmaster. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 3. The Fine Print ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: You can subscribe to the "Clearing Up The Confusion" E-zine at: http://www.cyberdatasolns.com/ezine Questions: If you have any questions, concerns or comments regarding the Clearing Up the Confusion E-zine, please email Greg Peters at: gpeters@cyberdatasolns.com This content may be forwarded in full, with copyright and contact information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Greg Peters is required, with notification to the original author. We never send the "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-zine uninvited, and we NEVER share, sell or rent our mailing list to anyone. Your privacy is safe with us. Unsubscribe: $UNSUBSCRIBEURL$