I have tried mint and I love their charting and the overall look of the site, but I choose budgetEDGE simply because I don’t want to connect to my bank account and because budgetEdge offers more features such as manual account entry, credit card tracking, and basic asset and debt management. There is a basic charting module (not as good as the one on mint) that graphs aggregate demographic data and I hear these guys are going to release a more advanced version soon.

I find the interface very simple and intuitive and didn’t have to wait a month for an invitation to join. I would definitely recommend this tool to people looking for a complete budgeting and financial planning experience.

@Rick: First, let me apologize as I believe the spam filter ate your first comment and it wasn’t fished out until recently (forced you to type your comment again!) Secondly, you made many great points!

MyPortfolio from BoA utilizes Yodlee to aggregate many of the financial insitutations out there, and Mint have also partnered with Yodlee to provide you with many of the same functions you get from MyPortfolio (best of all, it’ll be free to everyone — not just BoA customers!)

Some comments on your points:

2. Exactly. Unlike MyPortfolio, Mint will be able to help you do more with your money by finding personalized ways to help you save and make more money.

3. We understand the limited presentation of data too, hence the nifty graphs we have above for whatever categories you want

4. Although web 2.0 doesn’t always have to be bubbly and colorful — Mint will strive to be simplistic in nature and easy on the eyes. You shouldn’t need a 50 page instructional manual to use Mint — and you won’t.

As for Wesabe, although I haven’t try it out myself, I do know a few people that actively use it. The tips that you can gather from the community seems to be quite helpful if they apply to your particular situations.

Lastlyy, we are working hard to get Mint out the door so that you’ll be able to choose what suits your need better (and we hope it’ll be Mint!).

“Softwares”? Please tell me that’s a typo But yeah, totally, and hey, that’s why we’re here, right?

And you are right that spreadsheet works well after you have spend the money, not during the spending process. We are expanding our invite-only beta as time passes, and will definitely try to include everyone that’s interested in using Mint.

@Misti – That would definitely keep anyone on top of the game, if they log in and check everyday. It’s actually what I use to do. Everyday I would wake up, and religiously log into each individual accounts, check the numbers… see what transactions pop up and record the transactions I want onto a notepad, then at the end of the month I’ll throw them in the spreadsheet for whatever category I’m tracking for the week.

The thing about doing stuff like this (and I really agree with you that it’s the best way to be really on top of all your accounts), is that you have to really enjoy it. And I certainly did, because I was a personal finance junkie for awhile.

It allowed me to catch this random $7.95 fraudulent charge on my checking account. Something I could have easily missed, had I not check my balances everyday.

I haven’t done the logging in everyday thing anymore, as I have a better handle on how much money I have each month and where they’re going (or so I thought until the fast food incident), so I generally just log in every other week now to look at the numbers.

P.S. We really can’t wait to share Mint with more people too (as we fine tune it). I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s true!

I recently discovered MyPortfolio on Bank of America (a free service when you have an account there). It’s extremely convenient. I entered in all of my login info for every account I have (credit cards, student loans, investments, and even airline points) and it keeps track of every transaction and automatically categorizes everything. So far the categorization algorithm seems to work pretty well (occasionally I have to switch Quik Mart from “Groceries” to “Gasoline/Fuel”).

I can then view a few nice graphical representations of my spending (a pie chart across spending categories, cash flow time lines, budget vs. actual bar graphs, and %credit line utilization graphs). Visualizing this information has been helpful for keeping me more conservative in my spending. Additionally, it is helping me plan a bit better for future saving/spending.

I’ve also heard about this online tool called Wesabe (www.wesabe.com) that looks interesting. Does anyone have experience with that?

I’ve tried making excel spreadsheets for budgeting, but have been terrible about maintaining them. I generally spend a lot of time on it once every 4 or 5 months, with little to no activity in-between. And then money still seems to just disappear.

I’ve been wanting to try this Mint software tool ever since I came across it, but haven’t been invited to beta yet. Luckily I came across something else to hold me over in the meantime.

I recently discovered MyPortfolio on Bank of America (a free service when you have an account there). It’s extremely convenient. I entered in all of my login info for every account I have (credit cards, student loans, investments, and even airline points) and it keeps track of every transaction and automatically categorizes everything. So far the categorization algorithm seems to work pretty well (occasionally I have to switch Quik Mart from “Groceries” to “Gasoline/Fuel”).

I can then view a few nice graphical representations of my spending (a pie chart across spending categories, cash flow time lines, budget vs. actual bar graphs, and %credit line utilization graphs). Visualizing this information has been helpful for keeping me more conservative in my spending. Additionally, it is helping me plan a bit better for future saving/spending.

Some areas for improvement:
1) It is not well-advertised or even positioned very highly on the BoA homepage (you have to look down at the “Other Accounts and Info” category when you log in). Maybe they’re still testing features out and aren’t ready to get everyone using it.
2) Doesn’t provide any advice for what to do with your money. No “hey, you have $5,000 sitting in this checking account that could be earning you x% more in interest!”
3) Somewhat limited graphical representations of data. For example, I can’t make a graph of my spendings on “Gas” specifically over the past year. Not yet anyway.
4) Doesn’t quite have that “wow, this is a cool Web2.0 gadget” feel. But I guess that’s just a slight taste for bubbly letters and bright colors that I’ve acquired.

Overall it seems like a good tool. And if you use BoA, there’s the added benefit of just having one place to go for all your financial needs, and theoretically you already trust them with that information. It does leave something to be desired as far as features go, however.

I’m really interested in trying out the Mint tool so I can see which I prefer.