I watched a demo yesterday of the cool feature that went live today at Mint.com: Goals. And I’ve already come up with a plan to get out of debt, remodel my house, buy a new car, go on vacation, and pay for my kids to go to college. I don’t have any more money than I did yesterday but I do have a plan. And that’s a sobering thing.
The thing that’s cool about this new tool is that it is easy, easy, easy. Since Mint already connects to your credit cards so you can track spending, for example, it can automatically pull up your actual debt when you click on the “Get Out of Debt” goal. All you do is tick a couple of boxes and decide how much of your hard-earned cash you want to throw at this goal each month. It does the math and makes helpful suggestions (including lower-interest credit cards) to help you achieve your goals faster.
If it’s a car or house you are saving for, it goes out and looks up the market value of a house in your desired area or the Kelly Blue Book value of the car you want and plugs those numbers in before you can say, “Sticker Shock.” It instantly tells you how much you will need to save for a down payment and what your monthly payment will be.
If you haven’t tried the awesome and free financial planning tools at Mint.com yet maybe this is the thing to get you to take the plunge into visual fiscal management?