The Economics of Raising a Child

Yes, this is WITHOUT college costs included.

An informed mind is a prepared mind.

A Step By Step Guide on Getting Starting With Mint.com (my fav budgeting software)

Anyone who has gotten one on one financial advice from me, knows one of my favorite ideas/concepts/websites/iphone apps is infact Mint.com. It was the backbone in the strategy I used to get out of debt the second time I had gotten into it. When you first sign up for it, however, it can be a little intimidating. Lucky for us, JD Roth over at Getrichslowly has written a step by step on how to get started with Mint.com:

Getting Started with Mint

On Tuesday, I wrote that I’ve decided to track my finances again.I’m doing fine financially, but after a few months of not watching my income and expenses closely, I feel a little lost. I miss the ability to know exactly where my money’s going.

I had intended to install the new desktop version of Quicken, which is what I’ve been using for years. (Before that, I used Andrew Tobias’s Managing Your Money, but that hasn’t been updated since 1995!) In the comments to Tuesday’s post, several readers asked why I don’t just use Mint. Good question. I don’t really have a good answer.

What is Mint?
Mint is a free web-based personal-finance program. Mint automagically connects with your bank accounts, your credit card accounts, and — in theory, at least — your investment accounts. Because Mint fetches data for you, there’s no tedious data entry. Mint has been around for a couple of years, but I’ve been reluctant to try it.

I haven’t tried Mint for several reasons:

• It didn’t offer all the features I wanted, particularly the ability to track investment accounts.
• I didn’t like the revenue model. Mint makes money by pushing new financial products on users. I’ve since realized that — duh! — that’s the same way Get Rich Slowly makes money, as well as the rest of the financial web.
• I was loyal to the folks at Wesabe, a Mint competitor and friend to GRS. Unfortunately, Wesabe shut down earlier this year. (You can read about it here.)
• Though I fully embrace the Internet Age, I’m still wary of giving one service access to all of my accounts.

But enough GRS readers have sung the praises of Mint over the past two years that I finally decided to give it a try. Yesterday, I set up my Mint account.

Remember: You should always read the terms of use! I know it’s a pain, but any time you enter into a legal agreement involving your money, you should read it. This is especially true when buying a home or a car, but it’s also true when signing up for an online financial tool. If it involves your money, you should read it. Here are Mint’s terms of use.

Getting Started
If you’ve signed up for any other web-based service, you know what it’s like to register for Mint. After you enter your e-mail address, your zip code, and your password, you’re ready to go.

Once you’ve registered, Mint prompts you to enter your financial accounts. You need just two pieces of information to connect to any account.

After you supply your login info for each bank or credit card company, Mint connects to the financial institution and slurps up your recent transactions. (I was pleased when my local credit union connected without incident.)

As you set up your Mint account, you can also add loans, real estate (such as your home), vehicles, and “other” accounts. Other accounts include:

• Cash (or debt)
• Collectibles (such as my comic-book collection)
• Jewelry
• Furniture and appliances
• And a variety of miscellaneous items

You can also set up e-mail and text alerts based on a variety of parameters. This feature