Mint

Mint is a free personal finance service that tracks your bank accounts, loans and mortgages, investments and property to provide you with a financial profile that can help you to manage your budgets and set financial goals. Launched in 2006, the platform comes in both desktop and smartphone application format and is completely free to use.

One of my favourite aspects of using Mint to manage my finances is the ability to set personal goals. These can be either long or short term and come in the form of an easy to track bar graph to keep you updated on how you’re getting on with it. The platform calculates average spending by category so that you can see exactly what you’re spending money on, either month-by-month or year-by-year, making it even easier to set achievable targets.

I also particularly liked the alerts and advice feature that notifies you if you are being charged fees, going over budget or if any irregularities appear to help you quickly solve the problem and keep on top of your finances. This differs from traditional methods of looking after your budget, where you may not even notice if you are being charged for something that you are unaware of until you have paid out hundreds of dollars. With Mint’s alerts feature, this can be avoided.

One issue I encountered when using the service, however, was that if you do not have a steady and predictable income then it is difficult to set budgets as the platform requires you to put in your projected monthly income. This means that for people who are self-employed or simply without a regular income, then they must guess approximately how much they think they will make.

David Jones

I am a professional travel writer and travel enthusiast who traveled the world twice, so I am sharing my firsthand knowledge about everything related to travel and spending time abroad.