Your opinion of mint.com

Non-investing personal finance issues including insurance, credit, real estate, taxes, employment and legal issues such as trusts and wills.
Topic Author
Juki
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 2:09 pm

Your opinion of mint.com

Post by Juki »

Do you use mint.com? Would you recommend it? Is it secure?

Thanks so much,

Juki
User avatar
bltkmt
Posts: 246
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2013 3:56 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by bltkmt »

I use it daily and like it and feel it is pretty secure. However, there are limitations that I would gladly pay to overcome. LIke any type of decent reporting or output.
User avatar
nisiprius
Advisory Board
Posts: 52211
Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:33 am
Location: The terrestrial, globular, planetary hunk of matter, flattened at the poles, is my abode.--O. Henry

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by nisiprius »

I don't know how an ordinary person can ever know how secure a site like that is. In fact I don't know how an expert can know. The site is always going to say it is secure, of course. A major concern I have is with mergers, acquisitions, company sales, etc. A company might have a strong security culture while things are stable, but every time there is a major shakeup there are likely to be changes in internal company culture.

There are some things in life where you want to establish an absolute, unvarying habit pattern. When you get into your car, you buckle up. You don't judge "How dangerous is this particular trip? How likely am I to encounter a cop on this particular route?" etc. You are just always buckled and you do not need to make decisions about it.

Passwords are like that. The habit pattern for passwords: you don't disclose them. Period. You don't ask "is it safe to disclose this password in this situation right now." No, you just don't do it. Furthermore, Vanguard and probably everyone else actually makes it a term of service that you not disclose your password--you have signed a legal agreement that says you will not.

From an engineering point of view, for a site like mint.com to want a password that theoretically gives them unlimited authority when all they need is "read-only" or view authority is JUST PLAIN SLOPPY. It would, of course, require industry-wide cooperation, but the concept is easy. I'm not a security guru but I don't think the execution or security aspects would be terribly difficult, either. All that needs to happen is for financial institutions like Vanguard to

1) offer me the capability of creating a second password that ONLY grants viewing rights--"Look but don't touch," and

2) tell me "It's OK to hand out THAT password."

In fact, the WIkipedia article about mint.com says "Some banks support a separate "access code" for read-only access to financial information, which reduces the risk to some degree."

Sites that aggregate a view of your financial data have been around since the 1990s. If companies like Mint were serious and responsible about security, they would have been lobbying behind the scenes and convincing all the Vanguards of the world to provide a read-only mechanism for use by all the Mints of the world. But that would take a lot of work.

It just too easy to say "Give us your full-access password. Don't worry, it's safe, and the proof is that we've convinced lots of people do it."
Last edited by nisiprius on Wed Aug 06, 2014 7:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness; Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
Topic Author
Juki
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 2:09 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by Juki »

bltkmt, your response is *exactly* why I asked the question. I hear of many people using mint.com and recommending it.

However, when looking over mint.com, I've had the feeling, "I'm not comfortable with this. Am I too paranoid? So many people use this!" nisiprius, thanks for your insight.

I think I'll go with purchasing software. Any recommendations, anyone?

Thanks so much for your comments,

Juki
User avatar
pennstater2005
Posts: 2509
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:50 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by pennstater2005 »

Mint wasn't able to link my local credit union, which I should've expected, so for me it was useless.
“If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.” – Earl Wilson
ProfessorX
Posts: 568
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2011 12:29 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by ProfessorX »

I have used mint for years and I am very comfortable with it. I consider my financial accounts to be MORE SECURE not less because I use mint.

For instance, more than once I have discovered fraudulent activity on my accounts right away because of MINT. I am fairly certain that I would not have discovered these fraudulent transactions for quite some additional time if I was not using MINT. As a result of MINT, I was able to immediately protect myself from these illegal intrusions. Without MINT, these intrusions may have continued for sometime longer.

I have numerous accounts across all different types of financial institutions. Mint makes it almost inconsequential for me to check my balances and transactions in all my accounts simultaneously EVERY DAY. If I did not have mint, then it would be virtually impossible for me to spend the time to do this even only on all my families credit card accounts...

...regarding Vanguard, Money can only be transferred to or from my accounts which are authorized within Vanguard. If some account authorization is changed I get emailed right away. If my email is changed within Vanguard, I get emailed right away. If for some reason I can't log into my Vanguard account through Mint, I will know that in my daily log-on.

If MINT's password system is ever compromised it will destroy their whole business model, this gives me confidence that they will continue to use the highest standards to protect my passwords.

Further, I feel more comfortable logging into MINT when I am traveling than I do logging into my individual financial institutions. This is because when I log into MINT all I am transmitting is my MINT password. The passwords of my financial institutions are only transmitted between the MINT servers and my financial institutions. So there is no additional danger my Banks passwords being compromised over for instance some hotels insecure WiFi because they haven't been sent...
lolbatross
Posts: 159
Joined: Thu Feb 20, 2014 9:36 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by lolbatross »

I use it and am comfortable with it. I find it useful. I'd too would pay for improvements such as support for some accounts where there is none. Intuit owns mint now so I imagine that Quicken's image is tied to mint. Some extra incentive for security. Also I think credit card information is still more attractive for a thief than retirement accounts where things take days and there are confirmations etc.
KyleAAA
Posts: 9498
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2009 5:35 pm
Contact:

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by KyleAAA »

I've used it in the past but didn't really find it useful. I think it's secure enough in that I think even if there is a breach (which I deem unlikely), there won't really be any negative consequences. A thief can't really do anything to my account without me approving it anyway.

Using read-only access code would be preferable, but there are probably a lot of financial institutions who would refuse to provide that. C'est la vie.
Gropes & Ray
Posts: 1094
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2014 7:28 am

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by Gropes & Ray »

I use it, and it has been a big help for me in keeping track of my cash flow. But it is a surreal experience to put all of your financial information into a website.
User avatar
Riceman
Posts: 215
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2013 5:50 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by Riceman »

Here's a compromise: only input credit card account into mint. The primary benefit of the site is to track spending, so credit cards are all you need.

Mint does a lousy job tracking investments. And for Bogleheads who invest in index funds for the long term, constant updates on the status of one's investments is a distraction at best. So keep you investment accounts off Mint, and in the extremely unlikely event that everything goes sour, your most important accounts are protected.
jmg229
Posts: 373
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2011 12:21 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by jmg229 »

I used to use it before I was married, but DW is uncomfortable with it and now I am more so, essentially following nisiprius's concerns. Now I do this by hand every week in a custom spreadsheet. Takes half an hour or 45 minutes a week to reconcile all accounts, but I get the benefits of mint (tracking, checking for fraud, etc.) while being able to make it infinitely flexible, plus it's a little fun. I also find that by inputting it myself, the money is more "real" and I'm less likely to spend when I shouldn't.
User avatar
SorenK
Posts: 28
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:35 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by SorenK »

I use it very regularly and like it. I have linked my retirement accounts because I like seeing all of them added together. About once a year I download all transaction data which I can open in Excel and sort or pivot based on category, which helps with my estimated budget.
berntson
Posts: 1366
Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2012 12:10 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by berntson »

Riceman wrote:Here's a compromise: only input credit card account into mint. The primary benefit of the site is to track spending, so credit cards are all you need.

Mint does a lousy job tracking investments. And for Bogleheads who invest in index funds for the long term, constant updates on the status of one's investments is a distraction at best. So keep you investment accounts off Mint, and in the extremely unlikely event that everything goes sour, your most important accounts are protected.
+1 I don't give mint any information for investing accounts mostly because it does silly things with that data (comparing my portfolio with the S&P 500 for example). But security is also a nice bonus.
yosef
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue May 24, 2011 2:10 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by yosef »

I've used Mint for years, pretty much ever since MS Money went belly up. From a features/functionality perspective, hey you get what you pay for. That said, I wouldn't be without it. I agree with nisiprius that you can never be totally sure they are secure. But for those that are paranoid, consider this: If one of your accounts were to be compromised (regardless of how), how long would it take you to notice, especially if it was in an account you check infrequently? Days? Weeks? I check Mint every single day, and instantly see what's going on with every account I have. If I didn't use Mint, there's no way I could or would do that. So I guess my point is that for the security conscious, while not using Mint saves you from Mint itself being compromised, it perhaps increases your exposure from any other ways your account could be compromised.
TexasTeacher
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2014 10:07 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by TexasTeacher »

I use and love mint.. If you use Turbo Tax...it's pretty much the same security setup on mint's end of the equation. They hide and encrypt your information after you submit it.

I use mint at least 7 times a day and love the budgeting features. I am not a fan of the investment side as others have said.
GeneParmesan
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2013 7:14 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by GeneParmesan »

Over the years I have attempted to use mint.com twice in order to track spending, and it didn't really work out well for me at all. The security situation also made me nervous so I also changed my passwords on my spending accounts after trying to use Mint.com. At my big bank, Mint.com claimed that they didn't need to store my password, but I'm not sure what else they're storing instead. If it's a hash of my password, which I've seen mentioned in a few places, then that's not secure even though it may have been secure in the early 2000s for some purposes.

Right now I'm testing out YNAB, and I think I may stick with it. The things I like about it are the interfaces for setting budget categories and amounts, and the interface for categorizing transactions. It's kind of like splitting up my CC and checking accounts into 20+ spending/saving accounts, and it makes it much easier to track what I meant to do with that particular chunk of money that I have saved up. Such "notes to self" are essential to me when trying to evaluate new purchases, because I don't always remember the myriad ways that I meant to use a dollar, which is really what I wanted out of Mint but that I couldn't get it to do for me.
User avatar
Go Blue 99
Posts: 1119
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 3:42 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by Go Blue 99 »

I absolutely love it for tracking spending on our credit cards. I used to do this manually, but Mint is much easier and more accurate.

While I do have investment accounts linked to it currently, I'm considering removing them because of security concerns (there have many discussions of that on this board).
Bill M
Posts: 440
Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2012 9:10 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by Bill M »

As a (retired) computer security professional, mint.com scares me. There's that famous quote attributed to Willie Sutton, about robbing banks because that's where the money is. Mint.com is an inviting target for anyone wanting to steal id/password combinations, because they store a lot of them. No system is totally secure, and don't believe anyone that says otherwise. Has mint.com been compromised? I doubt they would admit it, even if they knew.
User avatar
telemark
Posts: 3389
Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2012 6:35 am

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by telemark »

GeneParmesan wrote: At my big bank, Mint.com claimed that they didn't need to store my password, but I'm not sure what else they're storing instead. If it's a hash of my password, which I've seen mentioned in a few places, then that's not secure even though it may have been secure in the early 2000s for some purposes.
Hashes are one-way, so it can't be that. The best Mint could do would be symmetric (reversible) encryption with a key you provide and that Mint doesn't store--your password to Mint could be used for that purpose. This would put them on the same level of security as cloud-based password managers. I don't know if this is what they actually do, and their web site regrettably doesn't provide any clues, but it's a testable hypothesis. If you forget your Mint password and have to do a reset, do you have to enter all your other passwords again?
User avatar
FelixTheCat
Posts: 2035
Joined: Sat Sep 24, 2011 12:39 am

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by FelixTheCat »

If you use Mint to link to your Vanguard accounts, doesn't this violate Vanguard's policy of never giving out your id and password?
Felix is a wonderful, wonderful cat.
OatmealAddict
Posts: 1195
Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2013 4:03 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by OatmealAddict »

I've used it for a few years now and honestly can't imagine life without it. It's sad to admit, but from a budgeting standpoint, I don't know what we'd do without it now that we have a child and are a) spending more money and b) have next to zero free time. It allows me to keep track of our budget down to the penny with minimal effort. Because of that, we've been able to dig out of tens of thousands of dollars in debt and increase our investment contributions dramatically.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Its investment tracking and reporting is horrendous. But budgeting? Nothing beats it in my opinion.
dpc
Posts: 456
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2011 1:41 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by dpc »

Mint wasn't able to link my local credit union, which I should've expected, so for me it was useless
+1
"Worrying is like paying interest on a debt that you might never owe" -- Will Rogers
yosef
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue May 24, 2011 2:10 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by yosef »

telemark wrote:
GeneParmesan wrote: At my big bank, Mint.com claimed that they didn't need to store my password, but I'm not sure what else they're storing instead. If it's a hash of my password, which I've seen mentioned in a few places, then that's not secure even though it may have been secure in the early 2000s for some purposes.
Hashes are one-way, so it can't be that. The best Mint could do would be symmetric (reversible) encryption with a key you provide and that Mint doesn't store--your password to Mint could be used for that purpose. This would put them on the same level of security as cloud-based password managers. I don't know if this is what they actually do, and their web site regrettably doesn't provide any clues, but it's a testable hypothesis. If you forget your Mint password and have to do a reset, do you have to enter all your other passwords again?
I want to say they do not require you to reenter bank passwords after a reset of your Mint password. So that makes your hypothesis less likely. Clearly, they have to have a way to recover the plaintext passwords in order to communicate with the banks. One would hope they are not merely storing the plaintext, but as you mentioned they don't seem to say exactly what they're doing.
Ron Ronnerson
Posts: 3563
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2013 6:53 pm
Location: Bay Area

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by Ron Ronnerson »

I use a site similar to Mint. I found unauthorized activity on a credit card I never use because of it. Personally, I find these aggregator sites to be a great tool in managing all my accounts. The fact that you can get an overview of your entire financial picture in one place is helpful.
mars
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:23 am

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by mars »

Riceman wrote:Here's a compromise: only input credit card account into mint. The primary benefit of the site is to track spending, so credit cards are all you need.

Mint does a lousy job tracking investments. And for Bogleheads who invest in index funds for the long term, constant updates on the status of one's investments is a distraction at best. So keep you investment accounts off Mint, and in the extremely unlikely event that everything goes sour, your most important accounts are protected.
This is very good advice. I just followed it and deleted the bank account and investment accounts from Mint. I never use the site to check those numbers anyway. The primary benefit is the ability to track spending in different categories over time.
User avatar
tetractys
Posts: 6249
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2007 3:30 pm
Location: Along the Salish Sea

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by tetractys »

I tried it out two or three years ago and decided it could not compare to self monitoring. Just navigating the sight and attempting to implement the features turned out to be a big headache. I would have to log into a few sights periodically to keep an eye on things anyway; and those I have are simple in comparison.

I can see though where it might be convenient for wild spenders who don't want to track receipts; but good luck to them, they will need it. -- Tet
Last edited by tetractys on Wed Aug 06, 2014 4:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
kermit
Posts: 207
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:11 am

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by kermit »

I use Mint but only have it connected to bank accounts and credit cards. No investments. The bank accounts don't hold a serious amount of cash. I like keeping the bank accounts in Mint because it makes the Net Income graphs useful.

But I don't connect my investment accounts to it.
surfstar
Posts: 2853
Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2013 12:17 pm
Location: Santa Barbara, CA

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by surfstar »

mars wrote:
Riceman wrote:Here's a compromise: only input credit card account into mint. The primary benefit of the site is to track spending, so credit cards are all you need.

Mint does a lousy job tracking investments. And for Bogleheads who invest in index funds for the long term, constant updates on the status of one's investments is a distraction at best. So keep you investment accounts off Mint, and in the extremely unlikely event that everything goes sour, your most important accounts are protected.
This is very good advice. I just followed it and deleted the bank account and investment accounts from Mint. I never use the site to check those numbers anyway. The primary benefit is the ability to track spending in different categories over time.
I believe I will finally break-down and look into Mint now. I too would use it as a CC spending tracker only. My checking account is 99% for paying rent and CC bills anyways. Limiting it to CC account linkage would keep me from getting worried about banks and retirement account security.
User avatar
telemark
Posts: 3389
Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2012 6:35 am

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by telemark »

yosef wrote: I want to say they do not require you to reenter bank passwords after a reset of your Mint password. So that makes your hypothesis less likely. Clearly, they have to have a way to recover the plaintext passwords in order to communicate with the banks. One would hope they are not merely storing the plaintext, but as you mentioned they don't seem to say exactly what they're doing.
Thanks. That's disappointing, if perhaps not surprising.
User avatar
Flobes
Posts: 1771
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2010 11:40 pm
Location: Home

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by Flobes »

I am frequently away from home for weeks at a time.

I use Mint @once a week to see all of my transactions as well as the listing of all of my investment accounts and CDs. If something is out of kilter, either missing money or an unknown transaction (check or credit card), I could spot it without logging into many institutions one at a time. And Mint sends an email when it sees an out-of-ordinary charge or high amount. So in this sense, Mint increases my (on-the-road) security.

But, these threads do make me seriously ponder the potential nightmare of a Mint security breach. OMG everything is there!

PS I agree its reporting capabilities are very limited and frustrating.
GeneParmesan
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2013 7:14 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by GeneParmesan »

yosef wrote:I want to say they do not require you to reenter bank passwords after a reset of your Mint password. So that makes your hypothesis less likely. Clearly, they have to have a way to recover the plaintext passwords in order to communicate with the banks. One would hope they are not merely storing the plaintext, but as you mentioned they don't seem to say exactly what they're doing.
4 years ago their VP of Engineering stated that they store passwords with reversible encryption, and use some sort of hardware device for encryption key storage. That they tried to patent their system makes me nervous because you usually don't want to be using newly invented security schemes as opposed to one of the many off-the-shelf solutions to this. But essentially, I think that we can trust that if Mint.com is compromised, the hackers could only get the passwords for users that log in during the compromise.

That said, Mint has since been acquired by Intuit so who knows what's still going on. The rumors I've heard are that Mint is almost entirely separate from Intuit's other holdings such as TurboTax, but as time progresses, clearly Intuit would want to unify Mint with other systems to improve data mining from combined tax/transaction information. If you are at all queasy about Facebook being ablo to look at an uploaded photo, recognize your face in photos and know that you were at Bob's Sports Grill on August 1st at 7:07PM, then consider what information Intuit has about you and what they intend to do with it. (Facebook does this, and I don't use Facebook because of it.)

Comfort with such data mining of private information is a very personal decision. What does Intuit get from providing a free service? Clearly they sell advertisements, which are only slightly pushy at the moment, but are still targeted towards what I've spent money on. But it seems likely that Intuit will monetize all these free users by other means when possible. What exactly is in the Mint Terms of Service, and is it worth my time to read a long legal document that's been almost intentionally obfuscated? And when the document is changed in a few months, am I going to notice, and am I going to want to read it again? What happens when I need to pay for something sensitive, like an unexpected and sensitive medical expense, that I would ever want a potential employer to know about? What if some day Intuit launches a "reliability score" based on these transactions in a bid to compete with credit score companies? "Boy, that GeneParmesan spends an awful lot at online whiskey retailers, he is at risk for alcoholism." Or, "Oh wow, this BogleHead has expenses under control and is saving at a good rate, they must be very reliable." What if Intuit sells such a score to potential employers as part of a background check? Target got in trouble a little while ago for sending pregnancy related advertising to a teenager whose father did not yet know that she was pregnant, all based on an unscented lotion purchase. What can Intuit learn from looking across all my spending locations, combined with my categorizations of the transactions? This is all a little bit paranoid, but occasionally I am lucky enough to have a few beers with data scientists at various companies like this and I always end up more paranoid afterwards rather than less. Intuit potentially has a lot to gain form a "free" service.
whadyaknow
Posts: 128
Joined: Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:51 am

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by whadyaknow »

I've been quite vocal on this forum about my dislike of third party aggregator services like mint and sigfig. They have to store your bank credentials using reversible encryption, because they have to decrypt your password and then use it over the banking api. I just don't feel comfortable trusting my bank password to an entity that has no liability towards me for getting hacked and providing my credentials to a hacker. No security system is 100% secure. One can only add layers upon layers to prevent a single rogue or stupid employee from intentionally or accidentally throwing the doors wide open. One guaranteed way to be more secure is by entering your credentials in as few places as possible.

Having said that, I'd be willing to consider it for tracking CC expenses if I found it accurate. Unfortunately, since most of my shopping happens at Costco, which includes groceries, electrical and electronic appliances, discounted movie tickets and gym memberships, there is no way mint can divvy up my gigantic Costco bill into categories. I also don't frequent restaurants. So its not hard for me to track how much I spend eating out every month.

I don't doubt that folks with different spending habits might find it useful. I will however ask if the added risk is worth whatever insights you get from mint.
80/20 Stock/Bond
seawolf21
Posts: 1590
Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2014 7:33 am

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by seawolf21 »

Is mint.com Fort Knox secure? No. But because I do check it frequently (often daily), any compromises whether login/password hacked from mint.com or fraudulent transactions will also be detected early.
User avatar
vitaflo
Posts: 1905
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 3:02 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by vitaflo »

Every financial account is in mint and has been for the last 6 or 7 years. I sleep well at night.
User avatar
DaleMaley
Posts: 1592
Joined: Thu Mar 01, 2007 7:04 pm
Location: Fairbury, Illinois
Contact:

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by DaleMaley »

I tried mint.com back in 2011,, and got very frustrated with it for tracking investments. From my posting back in 2011......

See this link........http://satisfaction.mint.com/mint/topic ... rd_account

I tried Mint.com a few weeks ago, and I could not get my vanguard account to be recognized by Mint.com

Then I find out, as you will see in the link above...that mint.com has a bug in their software that prevents many vanguard accounts from being added....and they have known about it for more than 1 year!

The link above has a work-around mint.com's software bug.....basically you have to be running IE8 and then you temporarily change the view or style setting in IE8 to add the vanguard accounts.

The problem is that Mint.com designed their software to only allow account names that are relatively short. If your Vanguard account has a longer name, like a trust account, then you can not see the account name to accept it.

By using some user tricks, I finally got Mint.com to accept my wife's Vanguard trust accounts. I am still not impressed with the end result.

I'm staying with Quicken to track cash flows and net worth........then Excel for Asset Allocation.
Most investors, both institutional and individual, will find that the best way to own common stocks is through an index fund that charges minimal fees. – Warren Buffett
stan1
Posts: 14246
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:35 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by stan1 »

I use it for credit cards and my daily expense checking account (never more than $5K balance). I use the Mint application for OS X which puts a small icon in the menu bar on my Mac. With one click I can see a list of the most recent transactions on my card. I use this to watch for fraudulent activity. I have tried them out but I no longer us Mint or any other aggregator for my Vanguard or TSP accounts. The benefit is not worth the risk for me.
Warning: I am about 80% satisficer (accepting of good enough) and 20% maximizer
FreemanB
Posts: 374
Joined: Thu May 22, 2014 5:55 am

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by FreemanB »

I use it regularly without a second thought about security. The computer you are accessing Mint from is far more likely to be compromised in some way, and each time you log into any account, you incur a risk that your credentials will be exposed. I find it useful for tracking budgets, transactions, and while it isn't the best for investments, I can at least see that any expected deposits appear as scheduled. The convenience of being able to check all of my accounts in one place is worth it to me.
User avatar
siamond
Posts: 6008
Joined: Mon May 28, 2012 5:50 am

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by siamond »

I use Mint to track transactions in and out from checking, savings and credit card accounts. Primary goal is to track spending. I use Mint to collect and categorize such data, then export to an Excel table of mine, with a big pivot table that generates reports which are much more useful to me than Mint reports (which are VERY weak). This process proves to be a terrific time saver and a great source of information, I just spend a couple of hours a month going through the moves, super easy, super convenient.

I voluntarily do NOT use it to track investment accounts, first because the impact of a security breach on those could be catastrophic for me and my family (2 orders of magnitude worse than the checking/etc accounts), next because Mint doesn't do anything interesting with investment accounts (besides choking on some investment vehicles).

The budget tracking thing is useless for me (actually a nuisance), it assumes everything is a recurring monthly expense, while quite a few of my expenses are lumpy (e.g. pay car insurance once a year to get a 5% discount on it). I just look at my customized reports at the end of the month, and I can quickly see if things are going astray or not.

And yes, agreed with the folks who posted about the *increased* security of having Mint warning you about unusual activities. This proved very useful to me in a few occasions. I do wish the banking industry would provide some sort of read-only access though, that is for sure.
User avatar
JamesSFO
Posts: 3404
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:16 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by JamesSFO »

Mint is a nice wrapper around Yodlee - https://moneycenter.yodlee.com/moneycen ... aloginflow

Sadly it hasn't been improved much (at all?) since Quicken bought out the company and it is awful at showing investment information.
kathyauburn
Posts: 192
Joined: Thu May 07, 2015 12:25 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by kathyauburn »

Why would anyone want to use a personal finance site that does not offer reporting? Seems dumb to me.
User avatar
SmileyFace
Posts: 9184
Joined: Wed Feb 19, 2014 9:11 am

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by SmileyFace »

kathyauburn wrote:Why would anyone want to use a personal finance site that does not offer reporting? Seems dumb to me.
What site are you referring to? Mint? Mint has reporting (maybe not robust as you would like) - there are some under trends and there is quite a bit of filtering and customization you can do. If, for instance, I want a report of all my charity contributions last year I can go to "trends" - select Spending by Merchants - and filter by Charity - and pick last year. I can do comparisons to prior year, etc. Lots of options of reports I can run - I have found that I can get all the same reporting I was using in Quicken (perhaps you have other reports you were unable to find - not sure).
kathyauburn
Posts: 192
Joined: Thu May 07, 2015 12:25 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by kathyauburn »

DaftInvestor wrote:
kathyauburn wrote:Why would anyone want to use a personal finance site that does not offer reporting? Seems dumb to me.
What site are you referring to? Mint? Mint has reporting (maybe not robust as you would like) - there are some under trends and there is quite a bit of filtering and customization you can do. If, for instance, I want a report of all my charity contributions last year I can go to "trends" - select Spending by Merchants - and filter by Charity - and pick last year. I can do comparisons to prior year, etc. Lots of options of reports I can run - I have found that I can get all the same reporting I was using in Quicken (perhaps you have other reports you were unable to find - not sure).
I just want tax reporting. I was reading about Mint, and it said there were no reports.
lemonPepper
Posts: 93
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2015 6:43 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by lemonPepper »

mint as a product has not made much improvements in many years. Personally I still don't have a godo solution to track my spending. I tried another service called prosper daily and although it's better than mint, it's still a disappointment
kathyauburn
Posts: 192
Joined: Thu May 07, 2015 12:25 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by kathyauburn »

lemonPepper wrote:mint as a product has not made much improvements in many years. Personally I still don't have a godo solution to track my spending. I tried another service called prosper daily and although it's better than mint, it's still a disappointment
Well, as long as Quicken 2014 keeps downloading my transactions, I'll stick with it. The reporting is what I need at tax time. Saves me a bunch of time. Already, though, it's starting to crack. Won't download my 360 money market. Not a deal killer--I don't need that info for tax purposes. But I can see the writing on the wall.
beagle1
Posts: 137
Joined: Sat Oct 02, 2010 3:09 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by beagle1 »

Another vote for Quicken software rather than Mint.com. Maybe I missed it, but when I used it, I wasn't able to pull up income/expense reports, or analyze spending by category, or use custom timeframes for creating reports.
kathyauburn wrote:
lemonPepper wrote:mint as a product has not made much improvements in many years. Personally I still don't have a godo solution to track my spending. I tried another service called prosper daily and although it's better than mint, it's still a disappointment
Well, as long as Quicken 2014 keeps downloading my transactions, I'll stick with it. The reporting is what I need at tax time. Saves me a bunch of time. Already, though, it's starting to crack. Won't download my 360 money market. Not a deal killer--I don't need that info for tax purposes. But I can see the writing on the wall.
simmias
Posts: 250
Joined: Sun May 17, 2015 4:18 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by simmias »

beagle1 wrote:Another vote for Quicken software rather than Mint.com. Maybe I missed it, but when I used it, I wasn't able to pull up income/expense reports, or analyze spending by category, or use custom timeframes for creating reports.
Trends tab.
beagle1
Posts: 137
Joined: Sat Oct 02, 2010 3:09 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by beagle1 »

They've improved. I don't think you could get a P&L some years ago when I tried using this...
simmias wrote:
beagle1 wrote:Another vote for Quicken software rather than Mint.com. Maybe I missed it, but when I used it, I wasn't able to pull up income/expense reports, or analyze spending by category, or use custom timeframes for creating reports.
Trends tab.
User avatar
oldcomputerguy
Moderator
Posts: 17930
Joined: Sun Nov 22, 2015 5:50 am
Location: Tennessee

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by oldcomputerguy »

nisiprius wrote:I don't know how an ordinary person can ever know how secure a site like that is.

The same can be said of any financial web site, including VG, Fido, your local B&M bank, or TreasuryDirect. You have to take some things on faith, or just avoid all online financial activity whatsoever.
There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way. (Christopher Morley)
User avatar
JonnyDVM
Posts: 2999
Joined: Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:51 pm
Location: Atlanta, GA

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by JonnyDVM »

Mint is now working with less of my accounts than ever. I've more or less stopped using it. It's basically useless to me at this point. Too bad. It was good for awhile.
I’d trade it all for a little more | -C Montgomery Burns
mpsz
Posts: 516
Joined: Sat Jan 09, 2016 6:11 pm

Re: Your opinion of mint.com

Post by mpsz »

I agree security is always a concern (I am a software engineer by trade). The only bank to my knowledge that does it "right" is Capital One 360 which gives you a read-only "token" that you provide to your aggregator in lieu of your password.

However, the tradeoff is that the aggregator should make it easier for you to spot fraudulent activity, since everything is in one place and they can alert you to sudden increased spending.

Depending on what you're specifically tracking, Personal Capital (personalcapital.com) might be a good alternative. They track spending/income by category over a rolling 30 day period which I much prefer to how Mint does by calendar month. I don't think PC supports "budgets" by spending category. I think PC does a better job tracking investments. They will attempt to upsell you to their paid advisor service at a certain net worth -- I get a popup after logging in a few times a week, but no email/phone spam.

PC is also delayed by 1 day for BofA accounts where Mint was realtime when I last used the service.

I think the data mining concern raised further back in this thread is not something new introduced by the aggregators. Your bank already knows, and I believe certain cards actually get line-item data from the receipt from certain merchants. If you want privacy, you must use cash.
Post Reply