Enhanced Security

While you could always lock your device with the device passcode, we heard from users that wanted to specifically safeguard the Mint.com app with its own four-digit passcode. Now you can. Hand your phone to someone else and they’ll be locked out of the app. And if someone tries to hack it, after five attempts, we’ll reset your account and delete all of your personal information. If your phone is lost, stolen or misplaced, you can deactivate iPhone access.

Editable Transactions

We’re continuing to improve the Mint.com iPhone app to make it even more useful while you are on the go. You can now edit essential transaction details such as category, tag, description, note and date.

Real-time Notifications

The Mint.com iPhone app now takes full advantage of the notification technology in iPhone OS 3.0. In addition to getting notifications via email or SMS, you can now have them “pushed” directly to your device. It’s faster and it saves you money. Notifications for when you’ve gone over budget, receive fees or experience other unusual activity are delivered securely, right when they happen.

Update your iPhone app and take advantage of the new features today.

A star is born. MintLife, our still new online magazine devoted to helping you manage your money and understand the economy is a finalist in the OMMA Awards for Web Site Excellence and your voice counts. Vote for us!

We’ll save the complete list of thank you’s for the award ceremony itself (if we make it) but there a few people we’d like to single out. First, we’d like to give a shout-out to the team at Mule Design, our partners in designing MintLife, who helped us create a website that has the real-time immediacy and interactivity of a blog, but the depth and research of a magazine. MintLife also delivers on Mint.com’s dedication to transparency by aggregating conversations already taking place across the social web on sites like digg, Facebook, reddit, StumbleUpon and Twitter. Congrats to Mike, Erika, Katie, Rebecca, and David on this recognition of your incredible talent. On the Mint side, JP kept us true to Mint’s design aesthetic and Adam and Colin put in countless extra hours to ensure that we launched on time and with desired functionality. Thanks too to the team of fantastic writers and visual artists (too many to list here) who have provided us with such killer content. We couldn’t have done it without you.

The OMMA Awards are being held by MediaPost, a leading publisher of print and online magazines for media and advertising pros. You must register with MediaPost to enter but membership is free and gives you access to its website and publications.

You have until September 16 to cast your vote.

Winners will be announced on September 21, 2009, during MediaPost’s OMMA Awards Reception at the OMMA Global New York Conference and Expo.

Budgets that work like you do

Now our budgeting features let you plan for the future like never before.
Look ahead to see how your current spending decisions will affect your ability to save. Move from just creating a budget to taking a comprehensive look at your financial health. You’ll know immediately what you can do today to save even more tomorrow. Now you can:

• Budget on income as well as expenses
• Budget for infrequent expenses (like paying taxes or annual vacation)
• Roll over unspent funds from one month to next
• Budget over different time periods

Improved graphs and trends

We’ve added more options for tracking spending, income, net worth and account balances over time. You’ll make smarter decisions when you start comparing your spending year-to-year or month-to-month. 16 interactive graphs give you the real-time insights you need. Now you can:

• Graph net worth over time and net income over time
• Compare your data across different time periods
• Compare your data to other demographic or geographic groups
• Enter more granular demographic data for future comparison options
• Easily export all reports to a CSV file

Better filters

Mint.com lets you see things your way, whether you are managing your household finances or running a small business. You can now filter trends and budgets by either account type or tag, giving you more ways to manage your finances. Now you can:

• Select which accounts or tags are included in budgets or trends
• Easily separate out spending by household member, or business from personal spending

New ways to save

We’ve added IRA Rollovers to Ways to Save making it easier than ever to save thousands of dollars toward your retirement.

Microsoft today announced that it will stop selling Microsoft Money, its venerable personal finance software, by the end of June. While the software will continue to work, users will no longer have access to automated data feeds from their banks, credit card companies and other financial service providers.

If you’re a Microsoft Money user looking for a new tool to help you continue to manage your money, we invite you to try Mint.com.

Mint.com is the #1 free online personal finance service…and it’s free. It makes staying on top of your finances easy, efficient, and convenient. Mint.com shows you all of your accounts in one place, helps you budget, finds you ways to save money, and alerts you to any unusual activity in any of your accounts. Over a million users trust Mint.com with their critical financial information and find it the most convenient way to manage their money.

Here’s why we think you’ll like Mint.com as much as they do:

You’re in good company

Nearly 40% of Mint.com users tell us they’ve tried Microsoft Money — and chose Mint.com. In fact, Motley Fool and Lifehacker.com readers (among others) have consistently picked Mint.com as their favorite personal finance tool.

Mint starts free and stays free

Sign up for Mint.com and you can say goodbye to buying annual upgrades. Mint.com is continually adding and improving its features. And when we do, you’ll get them free.

Mint.com is easy to set up…and the rest is automatic

There’s no need to install software and connecting your financial accounts takes just minutes. After that, we do the work for you, updating your accounts, categorizing your transactions, calculating budgets, sending you alerts, etc.

Mint is online and accessible from anywhere

Unlike Microsoft Money, Mint.com can be used from any web browser on any computer. There’s no need to install anything and you can be up and running in a matter of minutes. We even have an iPhone app and a version of our service for your My Yahoo! personalized home page.

Mint is safe and secure

Your security is our first priority. We never ask for any personally identifiable information. We connect directly to your accounts using the same bank-level security as leading financial institutions. You can’t move money in Mint.com, and neither can anyone else.

Mint saves you money

Mint.com automatically compares your credit cards, bank accounts, brokerage accounts and CD’s to available offers and lets you know if there are better options to consider.

We know that change can be stressful. That’s why we’ve made it as easy as possible to get started with Mint.com. All you need is an email address and password. Then, add your accounts one at a time in just minutes. We hope you’ll try us out today.

Welcome, and please let us know your first impressions of Mint.com.

Many Americans start each day on their personalized My Yahoo! homepage. Starting today, they can use our new Yahoo! application to keep an eye on their money and budgets right along with their email, weather reports, sports scores, and news streams. If you’re a My Yahoo user, please try out the app today!

To add the app click here, or from My Yahoo! go to “Add Content” and look for the “Open Apps” category in the My Yahoo! gallery.

Look for the small
Mint leaf logo and click on
“+ Add”.

My Yahoo! users using the Mint.com app will get many of the at-a-glance insights that existing Mint.com users love most — an overview of their financial essentials — net cash, budgets, categorized spending, Mint.com alerts, investment performance, and ways to save – all on their home page.

And because so many Yahoo! users check their home page from their laptop while away from home, the Mint.com Yahoo! app does not display account balances or specific transactions. But all those details are just a click away on the Mint.com website.

We were honored to get the call from Yahoo! asking us to create a version of Mint.com specifically for their new Application Platform. We were one of just a select few companies chosen, we’ve knocked ourselves out getting this to market, and we’re excited to see it launch. At Mint, we believe that managing your personal finances should be an integrated part of your day-to-day life. Please let us know if or how the Mint.com Yahoo! app does that for you.

IMGCOM

As we head into Memorial Day weekend and look forward to spending time with our friends and families, our thoughts go out to those in military families who are separated from their loved ones. While Mint.com can’t help much in bringing them physically closer, we can bring them financially together and reduce some of the stresses that money management places on them.  We spoke with Lieutenant Colonel Mike Fenzel about this issue.

Lieutenant Colonel Fenzel has served in Afghanistan and Iraq while his wife and three children remained stateside.  He agrees that family members serving overseas face a particularly difficult time staying on top of their money while living apart.

“Leaving home to go to war for a year or more is hard enough, but when you add the complexity of managing finances while taking care of the kids it becomes a significant challenge and, as the months go by, a real burden,” he says. “This is particularly true if you own a home, are paying off school loans, or raising a growing family. When you do finally get on the phone with your spouse, the very last thing you want to talk about is a financial problem. Any tools that will make this easier for military families and lighten this burden would result in thousands of silent ‘thank you’s’ from around the military community.”

Mint.com addresses the needs of military families (and all families) by:

• Letting you see the family’s total financial picture on one, secure website…available 7/24.
• Making it simpler to track the family’s spending. We consolidate and categorize all debit and credit card charges in a single, searchable database…and provide charts and graphs which show how spending is trending over time.
• Making it easier to set and stick to budgets, by automatically calculating and tracking spending in the categories that each family feels are most critical.
• Making it clear how the family’s investments are performing vs. “the Market” with easy-to-understand graphs.
• Sending email or text alerts on significant expenses and deposits to both spouses simultaneously, wherever they are in the world.
• Providing iPhone access to virtually all of the above services, via the free Mint.com iPhone app.

We hope to provide a little peace of mind to anyone serving at home or abroad.  Thanks for your service and Happy Memorial Day to all.

]]> http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/helping-military-families-with-their-finances/feed/ 1 http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/get-your-mom-on-mintcom-for-mothers-day/ http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/get-your-mom-on-mintcom-for-mothers-day/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 00:20:49 +0000 Mint.com http://www.mint.com/blog/?p=3090 ]]> Most Moms already handle all of the household finances. If you use Mint.com, you already know how easy it makes managing your money. Flowers and chocolates don’t last. Give her a gift that will, a little of your time in getting her set up with Mint.com.

With Mint.com, there’s nothing to buy, nothing to install, and no annual upgrades. Mom can sign up in just minutes and immediately see all of her accounts in one place. She’ll get the peace of mind that comes from knowing that Mint.com is secure and private, providing bank-level data security and industry-leading identity protection validated by VeriSign and TRUSTe.

Busy Moms (and what other kind is there?) will like how Mint.com replaces piles of receipts with automatically categorized transactions and an at-a-glance view of her spending. Mom can immediately see where the family is spending and where it needs to cut back.

Mint.com can help your Mom set up a budget and keep her under budget. Budgeting has never been easier, or this much fun.

Mom can get alerts when she’s over budget while on-the-go from any computer or even her mobile phone, at the grocery store, the soccer field, or her kid’s playdate. Mint.com will even alert her to any unusual spending in any of her accounts.

And if your Mom’s the type that clips coupons and likes nothing better than finding a bargain, she’ll appreciate Mint.com’s Ways to Save feature. Mint typically finds users hundreds in savings opportunities on Credit Cards, Savings, Checking, and Brokerage accounts, and CDs in their first session—minutes after registering. And it keeps on working to find new ways for her to save every day.

Mint.com—money management that even a Mom can love.

Give the gift of Mint to your Mom today



]]> http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/get-your-mom-on-mintcom-for-mothers-day/feed/ 0 http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/mintcom-nominated-for-a-webby/ http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/mintcom-nominated-for-a-webby/#comments Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:00:55 +0000 Mint.com http://www.mint.com/blog/?p=2703 We're passionate about good design around here so we're especially thrilled to have been nominated for The 13th Annual Webby Awards in the Financial Services category. We are one of only five nominees in the category and we're eligible for both the Webby Award and the Webby People's Voice Award, where your voice counts. If we've made your financial life simpler, we hope you'll consider voting for us!
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We’re passionate about good design around here so we’re especially thrilled to have been nominated for The 13th Annual Webby Awards in the Financial Services category. We are one of only five nominees in the category and we’re eligible for both the Webby Award and the Webby People’s Voice Award, where your voice counts. If we’ve made your financial life simpler, we hope you’ll consider voting for us!

It’s exciting to be recognized for web design that simplifies what is, for too many, a complex process; organizing and managing your personal finances. Our product team spends hours polishing pixels, eliminating clutter and banishing the jargon that plagues other financial services websites.

You have until April 30th, to cast your vote in The Webby People’s Voice Awards.

Winners will be announced on May 5th, 2009 and honored at an awards ceremony in New York City on June 8th hosted by Seth Meyers. Brevity is the rule here as winners are limited to just five words to express their appreciation. Past Webby Award winners – and their speeches – include Al Gore (”Please don’t recount this vote.”), Beastie Boys (”Can anyone fix my computer?”), and Stephen Colbert (”Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.”).

The Webby Awards is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 650-person judging academy whose members include Internet co-inventor Vinton Cerf, R/GA’s Chief Bob Greenberg, “Simpson’s” creator Matt Groening, Arianna Huffington, and Harvey Weinstein.



Mint.com is also a finalist in the Productivity category for CNET’s 2009 Webware 100 Awards. Nominations stopped March 6 but there’s still time to cast your vote. Voting ends at noon PST on April 30, 2009 and CNET will announce the winners on April 30, 2009. We’d love it if you could help us repeat last year’s win. As Webware says, “Say no to boxed software.”

]]> http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/mintcom-nominated-for-a-webby/feed/ 1 http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/meet-our-millionth-user/ http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/meet-our-millionth-user/#comments Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:13:15 +0000 Mint.com http://www.mint.com/blog/?p=2297 Meet our millionth user. Tami K, a 35-year-old married mother of two from Gresham, Oregon is learning to live within a budget, with the help of Mint.com. Tami manages a dental office and is also in charge of her family's finances. Mint.com has changed the way she spends money.
]]> There are now a million people using Mint.com to better manage their finances and save money. Tami K, a 35-year-old married mother of two young girls, from Gresham, Oregon was looking to do some financial restructuring when her mother-in-law told her about Mint.com.

Tami manages a dental office and is also the financial manager for her family. She says that Mint.com has changed the way she spends money.

“I pay all of the bills in our household and my husband really doesn’t know what’s going in and what’s going out,” says Tami. We’ve never had a true budget and it came to the point where I really needed to educate him on what we were spending each month.”

Tami was already paying her bills online through her bank but she says Mint.com was the one site she found that could pull all of her accounts into a single place. It took Tami awhile to get all of her accounts into Mint.com because she needed to get them all online first but, once she did, she found additional ways to save money.

“Mint.com is a great tool to teach people how to save money,” says Tami. “I don’t think our age group is really educated on how to spend and save money. The website offers all of that, it provides a simple education for people that aren’t educated enough.”

Like many people, Tami was somewhat reluctant to entrust Mint.com with her account information but after reading up on our security practices and doing a quick Google search to learn what others thought of the service, she was comfortable enough to sign up. “I feel more safe with Mint.com than with a lot of my credit cards,” she says, relating an earlier incident of fraud.

Tami will have her credit card debt paid up to $2,000 and we’ll also pay off her mother-in-law’s credit card debt up the same amount to thank her for referring Tami to Mint. Congratulations Tami, thanks to you, we now have our millionth user.

Oops…Better make that one million and one. Tami’s mom-in-law signed up too.

]]> http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/meet-our-millionth-user/feed/ 4 http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/obama-administration-seeks-economic-advice-from-young-entrepreneurs/ http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/obama-administration-seeks-economic-advice-from-young-entrepreneurs/#comments Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:11:15 +0000 Mint.com http://www.mint.com/blog/?p=2095 Mint‘s founder, Aaron Patzer, was at the White House today to consult with top officials in the Obama administration. Patzer joined the founders of innovative Internet startups including CollegeHumor, Daily Candy, Kiva.org, Threadless, Twitter, and Zappos.com on March 6 for the summit.

Patzer went to the White House with a few ideas on how to revitalize the US economy by better supporting the innovation and productivity of small businesses. Mint has learned a lot through its experience as a fast moving startup in a slow moving economy. Here is some of what he shared with Obama’s economic team today.

]]> Mint‘s founder, Aaron Patzer, was at the White House today to consult with top officials in the Obama administration. Patzer joined the founders of innovative Internet startups including CollegeHumor, Daily Candy, Kiva.org, Threadless, Twitter, and Zappos.com on March 6 for the summit.

Patzer went to the White House with a few ideas on how to revitalize the US economy by better supporting the innovation and productivity of small businesses. Mint has learned a lot through its experience as a fast moving startup in a slow moving economy. Here is some of what he shared with Obama’s economic team today.

Emphasize education

“People have not learned the most basic principles of personal finance: spend less than you earn, invest what you save wisely, and be prepared for the unexpected. The solution to changing the national savings rate, and generating more capital for business formation, is education,” says Patzer. “Ultimately, the subjects we learn in school – math, science, history, social studies – are taught such that we might actually use that knowledge to improve our daily lives. Personal finance is a crucial life skill for every adult that is not being taught, that ought to be required for high school graduation nationwide.”

Encourage innovation

“Starting a business is hard, running it is even harder, and finding the right people is the hardest task of all,” Patzer says. “While the downturn in the economy has meant a flood of resumes for sales, marketing, and general business positions, the engineers, scientists, and researchers who actually make the next innovations possible are still in very short supply.”

Patzer’s recommendation for increasing the supply of technically skilled workers included increasing the quotas for H1B visas.

Reward employees

“One common technique startups use to attract top talent is to offer them equity,” says Patzer, “With equity, employees become an owner and investor in the business. Unfortunately, due to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) rules, whenever this equity appears to increase in value, employees must pay the resulting tax on that increase – even though they often cannot sell that stock.” Employees may end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in AMT taxes, only to see their startup ultimately fail before a sale or public offering. Their paper wealth never materialized but their taxes were all too real.

Patzer’s recommendation to the new administration is to eliminate the AMT for full time employees of qualified small businesses. This will allow small businesses to grow more rapidly and lead us out of our current economic crisis more quickly.

Stay tuned for our next Update post covering Aaron Patzer’s recap of the conversations and outcomes of his day at the White House.

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