Friday, May 15, 2009

Great Giveaway Open to All Nannies

Check out the NEW blogs of The Financial Nanny and Gentle Transitions for an exiting opportunity to win a FREE INA Membership.

Monday, May 11, 2009

The Nanny Financial Corner - Oh Budget!

The following article appeared in the May/June 2009 ADCAN newsletter.

by Alice Shaffer
Oh Budget!

We have all been told at one time or another we need to follow a budget. However the problem we run into is how exactly to set one up and where our money goes. We would all love a personal financial planner but can't afford one. Today I bring you some hope to this frustrating process. I recently discovered an incredible site called Mint.com. This is a FREE site that is the next best thing to a financial planner. It tracks your spending habits over the past 90 days. It will sync and track your financial accounts, help create budgets and alerts you if you have been charged a bank fee or have gone over your monthly budget. There is also a feature that analyzes your accounts and can recommend additional checking and savings accounts for better interest rates including credit cards. It provides you with a pie chart of your expenses and investments. This is great if you are a visual person. Mint automatically categorizes expenses and line items which is very useful. You can also create your own categories if the default ones don’t make sense to you.

I went to the site and in about 10 minutes I had signed up for my account. The main information you need is your login, password, and security question for all the accounts you want to track. Now you might be saying "Why, would I give them access to my information?" They use the same security sign in systems as your credit cards and banks. They are a "read only" site. They don't have your account numbers. You cannot move money around in this system. For more information on their privacy policies please go here. It is a secured network.

Mint.com was named one of the 50 best websites of 2008 by Time Magazine and has won multiple Webby and PC World awards. It was also named Best New Financial Service at the American Business Awards.