Personal Budget Tracking

« Track your progress »

Evaluate every month.

Once you’ve chosen some target goals for spending in a few categories, you need to track your spending against your budget. Mint makes it easy by automatically tracking and categorizing your spending and comparing it to your targets. You can ask Mint to alert you by email or text message when you go over budget. Or you can use our iPhone app to see where you stand while you’re standing in line, to see whether your purchase is going to bust the budget.

If you’ve gone a little over budget but your spending is lower than last month, that’s good. If you’re under budget, that’s better. And if it’s way under budget, maybe you didn’t set a tough enough goal in the first place. You want something that’s not completely out of reach, but not ridiculously easy. Congratulating yourself on cutting back your shoe spending from $600 a month to $599 is probably not a good idea. (Especially if you decide to buy some shoes to celebrate.)

Stick with it.

You might also find that one of the goals you set was unrealistic. Tweak it a little to make it achievable. Once you’ve revised your budget once or twice, you should have a reasonable budget that you can really stick to. And when you get a little momentum, you’ll find you want to save even more. A little success in one category might just open your eyes to other areas to save.

Cutting costs.

Cutting expenses in one category gives you wiggle room in other areas of your budget. Mint can help by finding ways to save in categories like fees on your credit cards or checking accounts. You should also eliminate any luxuries that you’ve been treating as necessities. (In other words, ask if you really need what you think you need.) And then there’s the old standbys: raising the thermostat a degree or two, eating in more often, shopping around for lower gasoline prices, and anything else you can think of to stay on that budget you’ve created.

Budgeting is easier with Mint.

Mint pulls together all of your spending into one place, with automatic categorization and helpful charts. And our budgeting tools make budget planning a snap.
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Want to learn more? Read more in this section about Creating a Budget, and Tools You Can Use.