Damn it Mint, it's not that freaking hard!!!

[Sum Dum Gai]

Whoever programmed you needs to be beaten with a stick. Yes I know, the name of the city I live in is also a famous clothing line. That doesn't mean you have a right be retarded when categorizing my spending. Safeway of (name of town) is obviously not clothing. Dr So and So at 1234 rd in (name of town) is also not clothing. I've gone through and recategorized damn near every transaction in there for three months. How many times do I have to tell you that Safeway is groceries and not clothing before you figure it out?? I mean seriously?

[alabamagal]

I agree that it should do a better job of categorizing things that you have changed in the past. Also I haven't figured out how to split transaction into more than 1 category. I guess you get what you pay for.....

I also don't need it to remind me that "your auto insurance is more than twice the national average" every month or so. I reallize that! Maybe it is because I have 3 teenage drivers!

[TrixAre4Kids]

Mint has an 'edit details' button on the transaction menu where you can split your purchases into different categories.

[Sum Dum Gai]

What they need is a button that lets you set a permanent category for matching transactions. I have to recategorize 90% of our transactions, so a feature that lets it remember what I'm changing them to would be damn handy.

[illinicheme]

I just tried Mint for the first time the other day. On one hand, it seems awesome to be able to see total balance on everything on one page. However, I couldn't load in one of my credit cards or one of my online savings accounts. I haven't gotten to the level of trying to categorize transactions. I might just stick with my Excel spreadsheet, at least for awhile longer.

[Sum Dum Gai]

I should have posted the original budget that Mint automatically generated for us when I first imported our transactions though. It was hilarious. We were spending about $400 combined for everything other than clothing, and something like $3,100 a month on clothing. It was crazy looking. It even categorized our mortgage payment as clothing.

It would have made an awesome I don't know where my money goes every month troll post.

[Elizabeth]

I agree with you Dark. I use it too, and I have to re-categorize many things too. And it has scared me a few times, telling me my balance is like $32 or something then I go to my bank website and it is actually what it is supposed to be. The only thing I really like to use it for is budgeting and goal setting.

[tloonya]

HUH?

[Sam_2.0]

It should let you change. We have an Apple Market here (groceries), but it kept categorizing it as electronics. When you go to re-categorize, there should be a check-box to say that all transactions from this place should be categorized the way you just set up. I only had to change it the first month, and now it always does it.

[tloonya]

sam814...so we can all figure out when you hmmm hmm your men?

[Sum Dum Gai]

When you go to re-categorize, there should be a check-box to say that all transactions from this place should be categorized the way you just set up. I only had to change it the first month, and now it always does it.

Right, but it's based off the mint name. The problem is that it names almost 90% of our spending Hollister. Some of it is grocery stores in Hollister. Some is doctors or dentists in Hollister. Some are gas stations. Etc., etc. There's no way to make a rule based off the statement name on the transaction, which would let me make all the Nob Hill Foods in Hollister groceries, but the Dr So and So in Hollister medical.

[Gardening Grandma]

Wow. This thread is making me appreciate Quicken.... ;D

[thyme4change]

I hated Mint. It is worth the $50 to buy something else - anything else. I was terribly unimpressed. It only brings in half my accounts any given time I open it, it classifies things in a totally random way, the reports aren't that good, it advertises to me. Just not a great program.

[sapphire12]

I feel your pain on the nuances of mint. Checks I wrote to church were categorized as restaurants. What?! When is the last time a restaurant that I could afford anyway, accepted a personal check? I think they finally got that bug fixed. Oh, then I bank with a bank with Southwest as part of its name. I'll get an alert you spent x amount on travel. Umm no I did not. I moved money to a bank. Why can't it read the entire name and/or a NAICS code?

I mostly use Mint to aggregate my too many bank acct balances and keep track of my net worth of cash vs. credit card. I actually had more cash than I thought I did. But, I still have too many baskets of money. I'm going to condense those this year.

[Sum Dum Gai]

It does work great to get a snapshot look at all of our accounts. The budgeting piece gets all wacky because it can't categorize our spending. I can log in and see all of our bank accounts, credit cards, investments, and mortgage though, which is fairly handy I guess. It's a good tool for tracking net worth.

[Deleted]

I use Mint as well and constantly have to re-categorize things. It is always giving me annoying alerts telling me that I pay 30% more for auto insurance (duh...I have a teen driver), I got charged a fee for my Roth (yup, they charge me a monthly fee for my automatic investment), and a few other annoying alerts. Oh it also doesn't properly track my contributions to my goals. One day it will say I am 1 month ahead of a goal...then next day I am 2 months behind. Weird.
I don't know of another program to use. I am new at this "budget" thing.

[buster]

I refuse to use mint as it puts your entire financial life in one location on the web. While it's unlikely the system will get hacked, I don't trust any one organization to have access to all of my financial information.

I do however use Quicken on my local PC and the auto-catogorization works without issue.

[Mardi Gras Audrey]

maybe you should move to the city of Abercrombie or into The Gap...

[SVT]

Apr 5, 2011 15:26:40 GMT -5 Gardening Grandma said:

Wow. This thread is making me appreciate Quicken.... ;D

ehh it's not really that serious. Yeah you have to go back and change some of the categories but it's not that much of a hassle if it's kept up with.

[SVT]

Apr 5, 2011 16:36:53 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

It does work great to get a snapshot look at all of our accounts. The budgeting piece gets all wacky because it can't categorize our spending. I can log in and see all of our bank accounts, credit cards, investments, and mortgage though, which is fairly handy I guess. It's a good tool for tracking net worth.

That's pretty much all I use it for; to get a snapshot of all the different savings and debt in one place. I don't use the budget tool.

[Urban Chicago]

I mostly use Mint to aggregate my too many bank acct balances and keep track of my net worth of cash vs. credit card. I actually had more cash than I thought I did. But, I still have too many baskets of money. I'm going to condense those this year. [/quote}

Me too, I especially like that I can add non-bank assets (like value of cars, cash at home, etc), otherwise, the picture is a little worse than our situation actually is. Not only that, I have one account that still doesn't do mint (or any financial software), so I can add a manual account.

As far as I can tell, Mint is the only program that will let you do that stuff.

Plus, I do like the "goals" features. I pretty much ignore their budget stuff, and use my own spreadsheet for that.

[Deleted]

Mint - the online version of what MS Money was 12 years ago..

Categories are useless because it doesn't remember what you change it to for the next transaction. I don't want SUBWAY under Fast Food - thank you.. I want it under the big restaurant bucket.

[Plain Old Petunia]

I love the budgeting feature, it's the whole reason I use mint! Lol, everyone is different I guess. I don't seem to have much trouble with the categories. I have broad categories and avoid living in towns with clothing lines.

Apr 5, 2011 14:52:48 GMT -5 tloonya said:

sam814...so we can all figure out when you hmmm hmm your men?

Haven't you ever heard of a pregnant woman being excited about the impending arrival of her baby? Good grief. I sincerely hope you aren't nearly so rude in real life.

[thyme4change]

Yeah you have to go back and change some of the categories but it's not that much of a hassle if it's kept up with.

I guess it depends on how many transactions you have every month. And, how much time you want to devote to it.