The Net Monkey

My trip to London, Brighton, and Edinburgh was a total blast. After coming back to work this week, I can tell that I really, really needed the time off to deflate.

For those of you interested in some pictures, here you go.

It’s that time of year again when I gallivant off to Europe. I’m going to be spending about 10 days in the United Kingdom, mostly in London, but with a few side trips to Brighton and Edinburgh. I’m stoked! Bye!

I’m heading up to Chicago for the weekend.  I’m going to see Ladytron and The Faint at The Metro tomorrow night and then plan to spend the rest of the weekend hanging out with my friend Shane.  It ought to be a bitchin’ time.

I’ve recently come to the realization that the pretense of being a Quicken user is just a waste of time.  I haven’t updated anything in it for months; it’s tedious and just an overall pain in the ass.

Instead, I’ve been actively using Mint.com.  It’s freakin’ awesome!  It’s able to connect up all of my important accounts: checking, online savings, auto loan, 401k, student loans, etc.  They’ll even let you track the value of your important assets like your car and home.

There are two exceptions, unfortunately: I’m not able to track my two Health Savings Accounts.  It’s not a big deal, really, because I rarely use either account, but it’s worth nothing that they’re supposed to contribute to my overall net worth.

So, why do I like Mint.com so much?  Here are some of my reasons.

• Mint.com automatically pulls data from many more sources than Quicken 2009, without me having to go to the financial institution’s web site and download the data myself for importation into Quicken.
• It’s much, much, much simpler to use.  It provides my net worth and let’s me see how I’m spending my money with pretty graphs and stuff.
• Mint.com has an iPhone application, allowing me to see my current balances and transactions from anywhere at any time.  This is huge.
• It’s free, for now, but I would definitely pay for it.

It’s really a good financial tool for those of us who are too lazy to dick around with Quicken, and the ability to check my accounts on my mobile device is a really big deal for me, especially when I’m traveling.

So, with all that being said, I don’t intent on buying another version of Quicken again.

I finally posted the pictures from the cruise to the Bahamas in January.

Photo Set: Bahamas Cruise – January 2009