Sams Teach Yourself Mint.com in 10 Minutes

Description

Sams Teach Yourself Mint.com in 10 Minutes gives you straightforward, practical answers when you need fast results. By working through its 10-minute lessons, you'll learn how to use Mint.com's free tools to simplify your finances, take control of your money, get better deals, and build lifelong financial security!

Tips point out shortcuts and solutions

Cautions help you avoid common pitfalls

Notes provide additional information

10 minutes is all you need to learn how to...

* Create your Mint.com account, and get started fast
* Consolidate all your checking, credit card, loan, and investment accounts on one easy web page
* Discover your total net worth right now
* Avoid financial information overload - but get all the details you want, when you need them
* Find better deals on loans, credit cards, checking accounts, and other financial services
* Easily create a personal budget and monitor your progress in following it
* Track your outstanding student loans, car loans, and mortgages
* Monitor all your investments, from stocks to retirement and college savings accounts - even art and antiques
* Get instant alerts about events affecting your finances
* Keep your financial information safe and secure
* Access your Mint.com pages from your smartphone or tablet

CONTENTS:

Introduction 1

Who Is This Book For? 2

Conventions Used in This Book 3

1 Mint.com Overview 5

What Is Mint.com? 5

Financial Overview 7

Stick to a Budget 7

Save Money 7

Spot Trends 10

Details, Details 10

One-Click Tool Tabs 11

The Mint.com Community 13

Security 14

Sign Up 15

Log Out 20

Summary 21

2 Checking and Savings Accounts 23

Your Checking Account 23

Linking Checking to Mint.com 25

Your Savings Account 29

Deleting an Account 33

Summary 35

3 Credit Cards 37

Your Credit Card(s) 37

Linking a Credit Card to Mint.com 38

View Credit Card Details 43

View Similar Charges 46

Use Tags 47

Export Your Data 49

View Other Accounts 50

Using Tags 51

Summary 53

4 Loans 55

Your Loans 55

Linking a Loan to Mint.com 56

Add a Mortgage 61

Adding Loan Details 65

Mint.com Progress Bar 68

Summary 72

5 Investments and Account Updates 73

Your Investments 73

Linking an Investment to Mint.com 74

Update an Account 78

Other Types of Investments 82

Summary 86

6 Email and SMS Alerts 89

Stay Alert 89

Basic Alerts 90

Configuring Alerts 93

Summary 101

7 Categories 103

Creating a Budget or Setting Goals 103

Transaction Categories 104

Assigning a Category to Multiple Transactions 106

Creating Custom Categories 110

Credit Cards and Categories 112

Summary 114

8 Budgets 115

Budgeting Made Simple 115

Creating a New Budget 116

Editing an Existing Budget 122

Deleting a Budget 124

View Other Budgets 126

Using the Budgets Tool 126

Summary 131

9 Goals 133

Setting Financial Goals 133

Adding a Goal 134

Use a Mint.com Goal 135

Editing a Goal 144

Creating a Custom Goal 146

Summary 151

10 Trends & Ways to Save 153

Trends 154

Ways to Save 159

Summary 163

11 Mobile Mint 165

Take Mint.com with You 165

Mint.com and Android 165

Mint.com and iOS 172

Mint.com and Tablets 174

Summary 176

12 Educate Yourself (Blog/Forum Usage) 177

The Mint.com Community 177

Frequently Asked Questions 178

The Mint.com Community Forums 181

Mint.com Blog 186

Summary 189

Index 191