North sider hopes to save with Mint(.com)
ONLINE BUDGETING | Site lets users track spending
New to Chicago, Lake View resident David Wilk was ready to put an end to careless spending.
His sister recommended Mint.com, a free online personal finance service. The Web site links up credit cards, savings and checking accounts, allowing a user to track spending habits daily.
(John J. Kim/Sun-Times)
"It really opens your eyes to when you end up in a routine, spending money on something cheap and having it just add up," Wilk said.
To start using Mint, users register with an e-mail address and the site securely downloads transaction data from bank and credit card accounts. It even offers a chart detailing the percentage of money spent in each category.
Wilk's top purchase categories for June were food and dining. Wilk, 25, said he is accustomed to dining out three to four times a week and rarely visits a grocery store. He said the site is helping him understand how much money he is wasting on restaurants.
Now he does not go out as much and is limiting the amount spent on food by budgeting for groceries and making his own meals.
The site allows users to set a budget for shopping, personal care, food and dining and entertainment, and it offers e-mail updates when a user overspends in a category.
As for users wary of plugging personal data into the site, Mint's CEO Aaron Patzer, 27, said the site uses bank-level data security and encryption to thwart hackers. "Mint actually helps keep you safer," he said, "Since it monitors all your accounts 24/7 ... it's an early warning detector for fraud and identity theft."