SIFE Financial Corner

A big reason college students don’t set a budget for themselves is because of time. Sitting down and figuring out how much you should spend on groceries, utilities, credit card payments, rent and gas can be very time-consuming and frustrating. But what if there were an easy way for you to organize your expenses and receive guidance to reach your financial goals? That is what Mint.com can do for you. Mint.com is a website that can help you budget, find investment opportunities, find the right type of credit card and much more. Here are some things you will find beneficial as a college student:

Budgeting:

• The first thing you need to know about Mint.com is that after you sent up your free account with them, you have to put in your banking information. You can add other banks as well, and it will still put all of your accounts in one place.
• Mint calculates your average spending in different categories (groceries, bills, shopping, etc.) to help create a budget based on your spending history.
• It also shows you how much you’ll save by cutting back in any category. You can even plan for one-time only expenses and recurring monthly expenses.
• Mint shows you exactly how your spending decisions will affect how much you have left at the end of the month or year.

Categorizing Transactions:

• Even though your personal bank has options online to separate your expenses into different categories, it is more time consuming because you usually have to do it for each one because it transfers. Mint, on the other hand, has hundreds of categories, and it’s easy to rename or re-categorize any transaction. You can add your own categories and Mint automatically applies them every time.
• Mint also separates a $102 ATM withdrawal into $100 cash and $2 fee. And you can easily separate out purchases from one transaction into different categories. For instance, if you have a $50 transaction at the grocery store, you can separate it into $40 of items and a $10 withdrawal.

Alerts:

• Mint can help protect your personal finances and credit scores by notifying you of unusual charges or large purchases.
• It also alerts you when your account balance is low, and even sends you bill reminders, so you can avoid fees and save money.

The SIFE Financial Corner is created by members of the UMKC Students in Free Enterprise team.

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