Security issues? USAA realizes that this could bring about security problems, and that is why they are only allowing the feature for customers with another account with them such as an insurance policy or a line of credit.

A feature like this really appeals to someone like me, and it will especially appeal to small business owners or freelancers that get paid in the form of a check. They can easily process a check at the time they receive it. Even with the security issues, I suspect that larger banks will soon follow suit with this iPhone/smartphone feature. Here is a video tutorial of the application from USAA:

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USAA Offers Check Deposit Feature With iPhone is a post from: Money Crashers

First, download the application for free and log in with your existing account. If you don’t already have an account, you’ll need to create one on the website.

The next screen that pops up is an overview screen that shows you your current cash on hand in all accounts linked to your Mint account and total credit card debt. It also has an overview of your budget, cash flow, and amount in investments.

Touch the budget overview, and the next screen looks like the screen below. It gives you an overview of all of the budget categories you track on your Mint.com account.

Touch the Cash Flow overview and this screen pops up. It’s an overview of where your money is going based on either general categories, or categories you’ve already set up. It’s nice to see what categories you’re spending too much money when you’re too busy to sit down and look at your Mint.com account.

The Accounts overview button will expand to show you an overview of all of your checking and savings accounts if they are accessible online. This gives you a nice real-time view of all of your accounts if you are on-the-go and need to know what your cash reserve is looking like.

What The iPhone App Needs

• the ability to make changes to your budget goals
• the ability to see checking account transactions
• see graphs and charts made regarding spending trends

I am not that impressed with the iPhone app, but I know it’s because Mint doesn’t want it to take away from their web application. The app will probably get an overhaul in the coming months, and this is a decent first try.

Related Posts:

• How I Use Mint.com To Benefit My Personal Finances
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A Review Of the Mint.com iPhone Application is a post from: Money Crashers

1. Checking Accounts
2. ING Savings Accounts
3. Sharebuilder brokerage and rollover IRA accounts
4. Student Loan Accounts
5. Mortgage account with Countrywide/Bank of America
6. Bank of America Credit Card (which we don’t use)

Net Worth Updates

If most or all of your bank and credit accounts are accessible online, then you can probably link them up to your Mint account. This is a great way to track your net worth in real time. It’s also a great way to track your progress of paying off your outstanding debts. Mint gives you a nice snapshot of Assets and Liabilities all on the left-hand side of the dashboard. The only problem I have run into is getting some of the sites to link up properly. For instance, ING uses quite a few security measures, so sometimes the security questions keep Mint from updating the account. Mint asks you what your security questions are, but sometimes the sequence of what ING asks for throws off Mint.

Tracking Variable Expenses

Don’t pay for a service like Mvelopes.com when you can use Mint.com to do the same thing. Mint allows you to set up budget categories you want to track. I suggest only tracking variable expenses such as groceries, entertainment, gas, clothing, and gifts.

Track Spending Trends

Mint.com compiles spending trends based on your spending categories by automatically compiling your debit transactions. If you’re a chart nerd, Mint.com gives you a pie chart and a bar graph. This is good information, because it can help you see what you are spending more money on each month and what you need to start tracking more often.

I want to hear your thoughts about Mint.com and how you use it. Do you like their application? Did you start out using it a lot and then forget about it?

Related Posts:

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• A Review Of The Mint.com Personal Finance Application
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How I Use Mint.com To Benefit My Personal Finances is a post from: Money Crashers

Here is the press release:

Mint.com Launches Beta Test of First Advice Feature

Financial Fitness provides actionable steps to better financial health

Mountain View, Calif., April 28, 2009 – Mint.com (www.mint.com), the nation’s leading online personal finance service, today released Financial Fitness, a new feature available in beta to current Mint.com users. This launch continues the service’s progress from providing valuable financial management information, to delivering actionable recommendations. While Mint.com already shows users their entire net worth in a clear and simple interface, Financial Fitness goes further, suggesting specific steps to improve that financial standing. Starting today, ten percent of Mint.com’s more than 1 million users will gain access to this new feature, helping to refine it before its broad launch early this summer.

“Most financial advice makes smart money management seem complicated, and it’s not,” said Aaron Patzer, founder and CEO of Mint.com. “The basics of personal financial management are simple and can be easily understood and practiced by everyone. We designed Financial Fitness to show that to our users and get them started.”

Financial Fitness defines five personal finance principles and specifies the steps everyone should take on a weekly, monthly and annual basis to put them into action. Integrated directly into users’ automated Mint.com service, which tracks their spending and investments every day, Financial Fitness recognizes and alerts users when they are on- or off-track in achieving financial health.

The five money-saving principles at the core of Mint.com’s Financial Fitness advice are:

1. Know your Money

2. Spend Less than you Earn

3. Use Debt Wisely

4. Invest Your Savings

5. Prepare for the Unexpected

For each core principle, Mint.com defines the tasks a user needs to do to be fiscally fit, whether keeping to a budget, avoiding late fees, saving money, or making a retirement contribution. Mint.com not only shows users the steps they need to take, but also explains why they’re important. The approach is distinctive in four key ways:

1. Alerts users, through integration with the user’s Mint.com account, when key “Achieve-Mints” are, or are not, being met – like going a full month with no bank fees.

2. Makes each step immediately actionable, with direct access to Mint-approved tools, calculators, and providers that help them make real progress in real time.

3. Reveals new steps toward improvement on an ongoing basis, based on each user’s individual situation.

4. Tracks progress toward greater financial fitness in an engaging way.

“Whether their ultimate financial goal is getting out of debt, investing for college or a home, or saving for retirement, everyone should follow the fundamentals outlined by Financial Fitness,” added Patzer. “We not only make it easier to understand how to get financially fit, but add a little fun, with the ability to earn points toward the goal of achieving 100% fitness. Like any goal – from weight loss, to video game domination, or getting a promotion –specific, actionable plans help people stay on track in the short term, and achieve more in the long term.”

This initial entry into financial advice mirrors the launch of Mint.com’s breakthrough money management tool. While dozens of expensive desktop software packages existed before the September, 2007 introduction of this free, online personal finance service, Mint.com’s simplicity and ease-of-use have made it the fastest growing personal finance service ever and a favorite among experts, earning it a series of prestigious awards. The service recently added its millionth user and now provides online personal financial management services to 1% of all US households.

I don’t think these software programs will hurt the financial planning industry too much, because there is no substitute for quality advice from a seasoned professional. However, much of the financial advising industry has been tainted with salesmen masked as planners or advisors, so the actual advice portion has been diluted and distorted. Having said that, there is only so much that a program can provide by way of financial insight and advice. I think it’s a nice tool, but I am not sure how many people will actuall listen and take action based on their recommendatons, unless the recommendations are mostly mundane, rudimentary suggestions. Related Posts:

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• How I Use Mint.com To Benefit My Personal Finances
• Check Out Build My Budget
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Mint.com Launches Automated Financial Advice Feature is a post from: Money Crashers

Mint.com App: I was a little disappointed at the functionality of this app, but nonetheless, I love Mint, so this is still one of my favorites. If you want a quick snapshot of the accounts that you have linked up to your Mint account, this is a good app to download. This app is Free, and I am sure there will be updates for it in the future. One way to make good use of this app is to set certain budgets for discretionary spending such as entertainment and clothing. You’ll be able to check your micro-budgets on Mint while you are out shopping or having fun. This app is FREE.

Bank of America App: Not my favorite, but I have it on my iPhone for utility purposes. It’s much easier to have the app than trying to sign into the website on Safari. This app is FREE.

Save Benji’s: I just downloaded this App, so I haven’t used it much, but it looks pretty cool. Most of the bad reviews are because they can’t get it to work right or they the product they are looking for doesn’t come up. This app is a work in progress, but the concept is great. You can look up a product by it’s name, category, bar code, etc., and it scours the internet to see if you’re getting a deal. It’ll show you comparisons on the internet. My wife leave stores all the time without purchasing an item, because we want to make sure it’s not cheaper on the internet. I hope this app helps us figure out the internet prices without leaving the store. Cost: $.99

Paypal: Allows you to access your account and pay people instantly through the traditional payment methods. It’s nice to have this if you are with someone who has paypal and you don’t have cash on you. They can physically watch you pay them instead of looking like a mooch and saying, “Oh, I promise I’ll pay you back”. This app is FREE

Shopping List: Keep track of your shopping list on your iPhone. Never leave the shopping list at home! I am a big believer of having a shopping list when you go to the grocery store or a store like Target and/or Wal-Mart. It’s so easy to make impulse buys at the grocery store or Target, and they can bust your budget like no other. This app helps you never leave your list at home, and you can keep a running list by adding an item every time it comes to mind. Cost: $.99

There are a ton of personal finance apps out there. I think there are about 50 tip calculators. If you are really bad at figuring out tips, then you can pick up a free one. There are also about 10 different variations of the shopping list app, but that is the best one for the money, in my opinion. I’ll admit it, I wrote this post so you all could tell me your favorite iPhone apps. Tell me your favorite money and other iPhone apps. Related Posts:

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My Favorite Personal Finance iPhone Applications is a post from: Money Crashers

I’m lazy, and I’m cheap. There, I said it. This means that I don’t have Quicken or MSN Money to track my finances. I’ve been using excel spreadsheets and notebooks to track our spending and budgeting for the past couple of years. When I stumbled upon Mint and their personal finance application, I knew that I found something that would be very beneficial to me and the readers of Money Crashers. I had tried out several other personal finance application websites such as Wesabe.com, and my experience with it was horrible. I couldn’t even get my accounts to sync with the site. The process of adding my bank accounts was tumultuous, and I stopped using it after two days. Here is a comprehensive review of the Mint.com site. Give it a try, because they offer free accounts with no strings attached!

Interface

The interface is very clean, reliable, and flows well. It uses a tab design, with plenty of colorful charts and easy-to-find links and buttons. The predominant color is green, of course. But, I think that the color scheme of the application is very pleasing to the eyes, and it has a logical layout.

Adding Accounts

Like I said before, adding accounts with Wesabe.com was a nightmare. You had to install some kind of browser plug-in that forced you to sign into the bank website yourself and it recorded every one of your actions, then the plug-in repeated them to log into your account. It was very weird, and it did not seem as safe as the procedure for Mint.com . On Mint, you simply create an account that asks you a few questions and then you set up an email address and password. Then, you pick a bank account from their extensive list, and type in your username and password. This is all done while you are still at the Mint interface. It logs in, and downloads all of your transactions simply by making one click of the mouse. You’ll have to try it to see how easy it is.

Overview Tab

The overview tab has three groups of windows. The first window gives you a quick balance sheet, showing how much cash you have versus how much debt you have. Then, it gives you a quick net worth chart. This doesn’t include all of your liabilities and assets, but it shows you all of your most liquid accounts and where you stand. The window on the top right shows you the most recent activity like recent transactions, alerts for bills that need to be paid, and important budget information. The windwo on the bottom right shows you a nice bar graph for your budget. You can set up budget amounts for all budget categories and Mint will track your budget based on the transactions it finds in your bank account activity. How cool is that?

Transactions Tab

The Transactions Tab allows you to sort through all of your checking or credit account transactions and categorize anything that wasn’t already categorized by the application. Some stores like “Publix” or “Wal-mart” are already categorized into their appropriate spending category for you. You can sort the transactions by name, category, amount, or date.

Spending Trends Tab

This tab brings you to a more detailed breakdown of your spending habits. It shows you in a pie graph where your money is going and who it’s going to This is my favorite part of the application. It will track how much you’re spending at Target or Starbucks or any other merchant you frequent. Also, there is a bar graph that can show you how you measure up to average spenders in your state or major city. Currently, we spend much less than other people in Florida in average. I’m sure that has much to do with the fact that we don’t have kids!

Ways To Save Tab

The Ways to Save tab is most likely the, way that Mint.com allows you to maintain a free account with their application. They will analyze how much you are spending on a particular service or the size of your interest rate, compare it with a company that they are partnered with, and then if they think that they can save you money, they’ll recommend that other service to you. Right now, it’s telling me that if I switch to the package that Verizon has for my internet, cable, and cell phone, they can save me $530 a year, rather than staying with Comcast and Tmobile as my providers. The only problem is that Verizon doesn’t offer cable service where I live. But, it’s still a pretty cool tool. If you’re looking to reduce your interest rate on your credit card, it will search other cards and recommend them to you that beat the APR on your current card.

Conclusion

I’m a big fan of the Mint.com application. Again, I’m not getting paid at all for this post. I just thought that you all might want my opinion about them before you spend a couple of hours setting everything up and playing with the application. You really have nothing to lose by trying it out. It’s totally free and there are no strings attached. If you hate it, just don’t use it or cancel the account. But if you really like it, I think it will really help you track your spending in an efficient way. Related Posts:

• How I Use Mint.com To Benefit My Personal Finances
• A Review Of the Mint.com iPhone Application
• Mint.com Is Offering a $5,000 Reward To Pay Your Holiday Bills
• More of What You Want From Mint
• Check Out Build My Budget

A Review Of The Mint.com Personal Finance Application is a post from: Money Crashers