The Best Website for Your Financial Plan

[DividendPartisan]

As many of my readers know, I recently got married (about 5 months ago now).

Well, Investopedia has an interesting article entitled, "The No. 1 Reason Why Couples Fight." Any guesses on what the number one reason is?....

Money. Yep, I'm sure many of you guessed it. Money.

It's easy to understand why money is an area of conflict in relationships - merging numerous accounts, different priorities, different goals, different spending habits, different ideas about money and what it should be used for, etc. The list could go on and on and on.

Since our wedding, my wife and I have had several in depth "money" discussions, but fortunately we have yet to fight over this topic. In fact, thankfully we've been able to sincerely and candidly (but still lovingly) discuss this area of our lives and appear to be for the most part on the same page with each other. Thank the Lord!

Nevertheless, despite these conversations, we both didn't have what I would call a clear "financial plan" I think. In fact, we've recently found ourselves spending almost all (and even more than) what we were making some months (despite my job and her part time job.) This, as you can guess, makes it difficult to invest..

Fortunately, however, I believe we have found an answer. The answer came to us in a single website - a website that will allow us to develop a comprehensive financial plan and monitor our progress- everything from spending, budgeting, goal setting, investing, you name it. And the best part - it's completely free as well. If you haven't used this program yet, you need to...MINT.COM.

Perhaps like many of you, I had heard about mint.com for months and thought nothing of it. I thought to myself, I know how to track and manage my money, I've got my own excel-file trackers, I am diligent, blah blah blah.

Well, when it comes to tracking my finances (especially with my wife now part of the picture) I do not stand a chance compared to mint.com. Seriously.

Within 15 minutes of set up, my wife and I had all accounts synchronized in one place, budgets established, goals developed, plans implemented to achieve them, our net worth displayed, alerts set up to our email, and detailed analyses and reports illustrating exactly where our money was going, etc.

It was, as the saying goes, "too easy."

I strongly recommend this website to anyone looking to better manage their overall financial picture. I have also heard and thought of the program Quicken, but have not tried it up to this point. I imagine it may be just as good, but it does cost a little to purchase.

In conclusion, hopefully this article provided you with some insight (or at least reminded you) of the importance of staying on top of your 'financial game-plan', especially when you have a large event in your life such as marriage.

Though I thought I was doing a decent job by myself beforehand, I realize there's always room for improvement, and Mint.com definitely helped bring my wife and I to a better, and clearer overall financial plan.

If you've used mint.com, I'd like to hear your thoughts about it. Please comment below if you can.

Thanks for reading,

DividendPartisan
www.dividendpartisan.com

[robertgpitts]

Hi Dividend,

I guess I'm still not comfortable with keeping my financial information in the "cloud." I use GnuCash (www.gnucash.org) for both my personal and professional financial record keeping. It's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's very powerful and very FREE. I keep the data on my computer and use both an external hard drive and online service for backup.

Robert Pitts
Freedom Personal Finance

[Tim Faith & Finance]

Nice article. We use min.com and love it. It's a really easy way to put the finances out in the open.

[One New Voice]

Nice post. I think having a financial plan is important for anyone. My wife and I have also had conversations like you and your wife but we do not see eye to eye. It is a challenge to speak opennly about money when one or the other is not happy with their current situation. It is really great that you can have that open conversation.

Thanks,
One New Voice
Running A Small Business

[Gameda245]

Thanks for share

[Jonathan K]

Good tips.

Top 3 reasons for stress in marriage: Money, Sex, & In-Laws.

We use www.mint.com and it works out well. All the bank info, credit cards, etc in one place is great!

[Gary Barzel]

I use mint as well, and I must say I'm quite happy with the way their system works. It always gets tricky when you have a spouse as the two of you have different spending, and saving habits. This is mutually beneficial to a couple in that it helps you sort out all your financing and see exactly where and what everything is going.

[youngjoe]

Are these sites you guys are referring to like Quickbooks? I'm going to check them out. Me and my wife used Excel spreadsheets, I think it's time for an upgrade.

[Jonathan K]

Update: I now use a Excel spreadsheets in conjunction with Mint.com. We still love Mint!