The Apple iPad is this season’s most desirable gadget but it might not be in your budget. Mint.com is all about helping you keep to that budget so we’ve decided to give away a Free Apple iPad! Enter here: http://bit.ly/cvRsPi.

The Free Mint.com iPhone app works great on the iPad and will help you manage your money wherever you are, with the features you need while on the go. Use the Mint.com app to check your balances, edit your transactions, and be alerted — via real-time push notifications, email or SMS — when you are over budget or get hit with fees or other unusual charges.

But, as Steve Jobs would say, there’s “one more thing.” We’ll pick one winner and if that winner heard about the contest from another Mint.com fan, then we’ll give the referrer an Apple iPad too.

The contest will run until March 18th at 11:59pm pacific time. Entrants must be fans of Mint.com on facebook: Facebook.com/mint to be eligible to win.

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.

Scott Cook from Intuit here. OK, I’m about to date myself. Long ago (27 years ago in fact), I watched my wife complain about paying the bills. That gave me an idea. And that idea became Quicken. Check with your parents – they might use it. Maybe even your grandparents.

But probably not you. For many of you, Quicken is a 20th century product in a 21st century world. It’s like the car your parents had growing up. So you turned to Mint.com. Because it wasn’t Quicken.

Mint brings a fresh, unique approach to managing money, creating new ways to help you save or get out of debt. I so admire what Aaron and the team have done and how they have done it. I can recognize great innovators and innovation when I see it.

As you know, Intuit has entered into an agreement to buy Mint. Over the past few days, I’ve read your posts and comments. I understand your concerns about what will happen to Mint in the future.

So let me set the record straight: Mint.com isn’t changing. It is remaining free. Following the close of the acquisition, Aaron Patzer and the Mint team will remain in charge of Mint.com to continue both its principles and its fast pace of progress.

We’re not planning to change Mint.com and make it like Quicken. Quite the opposite. Aaron and team will also run Quicken and Quicken.com to ensure this doesn’t happen. Plus they will benefit from this larger pool of resources. I want Mint thinking to infuse Quicken.

On a personal level, Mint’s leaders have earned the chance to re-invent all of personal finance on the broadest canvas possible. I will give them that chance. Will you?

I hope you’ll be part of it.

Scott Cook
Founder, Intuit

Today, exactly two years after launching at TechCrunch40, I’m excited to announce that we have signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Intuit, makers of Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax, for approximately $170 million.  It’s a great opportunity that could bring Mint.com’s unique approach to personal financial management to millions more consumers and small businesses as well as the 1,800 banks and credit unions serviced by Intuit.

In two years, we’ve attracted over 1.5 million users, found over $300 million in savings, managed $50 billion in assets, and helped people track nearly $200 billion in purchases.  Most importantly, we’ve helped a lot of people better understand and do more with their money. Thousands of people have told us that Mint.com has helped them pay off debt, control their spending, manage job loss, and even resolve money disputes with their significant other.  Expect all of this goodness to increase after the acquisition closes. And yes, expect Mint.com to remain free!
 
This acquisition makes sense to me because, first and foremost, Mint.com and Intuit share a common vision.  Intuit is, and has always been, a very customer-centric organization, with constant usability studies and follow-me-homes that observe how people use software and the problems they’re trying to solve.  This is fully aligned with my design philosophy here at Mint.com.


In addition, by joining Intuit, we can accelerate our ability to add more fantastic new product functionality into both Quicken and Mint.com. This means more people will find it easy and affordable to stay on top of their money issues. Bottom line? I see this as a chance to take a big leap forward toward our ultimate goal of improving the national savings rate.

Personally, I’ll play a leading role in the next phase of the evolution of Quicken, one of the best known, most trusted, and respected brands in software. A recent survey showed that 85% of U.S. adults had heard of Quicken.  It’s humbling to work with the people who really pioneered the field of personal finance applications.

Intuit is equally excited.  They recognize Mint employees as innovative thought-leaders in the field, who can make a breakthrough contribution to Intuit’s connected services strategy.
 
We expect the deal will close by the end of the calendar year. We’re looking forward to the opportunity to be part of a larger team with more resources that will continue to deliver the best personal finance tools out there!
 
Aaron Patzer
Founder and CEO

For Intuit’s take see: http://blog.quicken.intuit.com/announcement/2009/09/14/mint-com-to-join-the-intuit-family/

9/15/09, Update:

I wanted to let you know that I’ve been following your comments and I totally appreciate your passionate response to our announcement. I’ll try to address your concerns as clearly as possible.

Here’s a little more detail on what’s happening. After the acquisition closes, the Mint.com team will be leading the development of both Mint.com and Intuit’s existing personal finance products, Quicken desktop and Quicken Online. The fact that Intuit has agreed to acquire Mint.com, and is leaving our team intact, is evidence that Intuit has been impressed by and wants to build upon the user experience that Mint.com offers. We’ll not only improve upon that experience for Mint.com but also bring our know-how to the Quicken product line. Destroying the Mint.com user experience does not make sense for Intuit, Mint.com or any of our users.  

I can’t speak to Intuit’s customer service but Mint has always been as responsive as possible to our users. We believe this is one of the reasons for the success we’ve had and the trust you’ve put in us. Our ability to respond quickly to user requests is key to the way we build software. In fact, in the discussions leading to this deal, Intuit heard a lot about our software development process and told us they are very interested in learning how they can do the same thing for all of their software products, not just the personal finance ones.

Aaron Patzer
Founder and CEO

Intuit founder Scott Cook on why Mint.com won’t change

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.

The stakes are high, the demo is nerve racking, and although 52 are given the chance, only one company can emerge as the best presenting company. We know, we’ve been there.

“Winning TechCrunch40 last September was incredibly exciting for us so we know exactly how the presenting companies feel,” says Mint.com founder and CEO Aaron Patzer. “It was great to return this year and see so many innovative startups on stage and in the DemoPit, along with many of our friends from last year.”

Mint.com is proud to be part of the community of internet entrepreneurs presenting at TechCrunch50. After having launched at last year’s event, it was a natural place to celebrate our first birthday. And we aren’t the only ones with something to celebrate. Please join us in congratulating Yammer, the best presenting company of TechCrunch50.

Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you working on?” As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location enabling co-workers to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, and share links and other information. Yammer also serves as a company directory in which every employee has a profile and as a knowledge base where past conversations can be easily accessed and referenced. Anyone in a company can start their Yammer network and begin inviting colleagues. The privacy of each network is ensured by limiting access to those with a valid company email address. The basic Yammer service is free. Companies can pay to claim and administer their network.

We recommend that Yammer do as we did and deposit that check immediately in a high interest earning account.

The picture above is of happy Mint user Andy Y. of NYC. Why so happy? He just found out he won an iPod nano from Mint.com!

Nearly a thousand Mint users responded to our request for feedback in our December research survey. Our thanks to you all. We’ve dug through your comments and made some changes to our product plans as a result. One example? We’ve accelerated our development of the new features you were most adamant about wanting for our free budget software, e.g. investment accounts, mortgages and loans. Look for those in Q1.

We also made good on our promise to draw three names out of the “digital hat” and award 3 survey responders brand new iPod nanos. These went to Andy, to Mindy S. of West Hartford, Connecticut, and to Michael M. of Corvallis, Oregon. Mindy and Andy (who both ordered “Mint.com green” nanos) also offered these comments:

It’s great to find a tool that can manage all my finances without the “heaviness” of that typical desktop application. I can pop in quickly, check all my accounts in one glance and leave in the same amount of time it would have taken other applications to load. On top of that, there’s always a fresh list of ways I can save money; today even. And hey, I’m not going to have to spend another $50 every year to install the latest upgrade, you guys will do it for me!

A big thanks to mint.com. I was excited when I first heard about you and I’m glad that all that hype was about a truly useful tool.

- Mindy

I think the biggest thing Mint has done for me is help me keep tabs on my savings, cash, and debt. Being able to look at all my transactions across my bank accounts and credit cards has helped me understand how I’m spending and kept me in the black and saving month to month.

- Andy

Again, thanks to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts on mint.com with us. We hope you’ll keep the dialog going… anything you’d like to share in a comment?

The Mint Team.

We’re incredibly honored to be receiving this award in the company of both huge players like Toshiba and Panasonic, and three other start-ups. Read the full PCWorld Award Announcement. We’re looking forward to the party/award ceremony in Vegas next month.

One comment, though: the article seems to imply that you have to give your bank account numbers or credit card numbers to Mint to use our financial planning software. Not true. In fact, we don’t even have the functionality to capture that information. You can get the straight story on How Mint Keeps you Safe on our website.

Our thanks to all of you who are actively using Mint.com as a microsoft money alternative. and as a loyal blog subscriber, we wanted you to be the first to know that we’ll be introducing some fresh features next month that we’re really excited about sharing with you. Looking forward to hearing from you all on those.

——

*Okay, so there were only 3 of us at last year’s party. And, yes, we drafted on another, larger party for a group of start ups. But we are officially declaring it our first annual party.

Further Reading on the Topic:

Microsoft Money Alternative

Online Budget Tool

Finance Software