I will confess – I am absolutely horrible at banking. I don’t balance my checkbook right – in fact, the only account I’ve ever balanced was when I was the interim bookkeeper at my workplace. I also have more than one bank account, and more than one bank. One particular account I don’t depend on to regularly pay bills, so I generally don’t pay attention to the balance on that one at all. I take out money from the ATM once in a while, and occasionally I will pay a bill from that account. Otherwise, I don’t even bother writing down all my transactions in my check register.
These are terrible, horrible, nasty habits! Don’t do this!
That horrible confession (and consequent advisory) aside, I recently signed up for the free online financial tool, Mint.com. I was hesitant. I didn’t want to put all my bank account information in one place. I mean, hello! Identity theft! But I had a referral from someone I trust (my cousin), so I signed up (just like Gina @ Smarterware.org).
Today, Mint just locked me in and took the last of my hesitations away.
So like I said, I don’t track this one account (BAD, BAD!!). The balance, when I log into Mint is about what I expect it to be, so I don’t give it another thought, or bother to look at the register to see what’s going on (BAD, BAD, BAD!!!). But today, Mint sent me an email.
Now right out of the box, without changing anything, Mint sends you a lot of alerts. Like, you just transfered money, and weekly summaries. Stuff like that. But apparently, it also sends you notifications on service fees, which is exactly what Mint sent me today! It turns out that one account has actually had two service fees charged to it – $40 I could use to go see a movie, for goodness’ sake! (I love movies.)
So of course, because I’m not completely stupid, I call my bank immediately and ask WTF (in a polite and curious manner) because the website doesn’t give me a clue as to what the charge is for. It turns out that I had an account that required at $3000 minimum balance! I just bought a house! I don’t have that kind of money anymore!
Long story short, I solved the problem, and my bank is super so they were able to refund all the fees. Yes! Mint saved me $40. I learned that since I’ve got such a great tool that makes keeping track of my bank accounts super easy, I really, really need to start watching all of my accounts with a much closer eye. That is, of course, only the financially smart thing to do.
Thank you, Mint!
Of course, there’s no referral program or bonuses to be earned for me to recommend Mint.com to you, but I’m doing it anyway. If you’re on the fence and want to know if it will really help you, here’s another vote for your YES column!