Ghost of Corporate Future

So lately I’ve become con­cerned about my finan­cial sit­u­a­tion, and I’ve found a cou­ple of web­site to help me on that front.

First is Mint​.com, a Web 2.0 way to keep an eye on your money. Basi­cally, you make an account on this site, and add your bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and invest­ments, and it checks your finances every time you log on. It auto­mat­i­cally sorts your spend­ing, gives you trend graphs (and com­pares your spend­ing with oth­ers in your area), and sets up bud­gets (also auto­mat­i­cally, if you don’t want to set your own). It can even send your e-​mail or SMS alerts when you are over­spend­ing or get hit with fees. I’ve been rec­om­mend­ing it to fam­ily mem­bers. One aunt likes the idea, but her hus­band isn’t com­pletely com­fort­able with giv­ing access to his accounts to some strange web­site. Another uncle doesn’t want to use it because he has his own busi­ness and I’m guess­ing there’s some co-​mingling of funds going on, which would make the site less use­ful (and poten­tially dam­ag­ing to him.) But if you have noth­ing to hide and you aren’t afraid, give it a whirl.

The other is Cred​itKarma​.com. I was look­ing for a way to keep an eye on my credit report, and this site is nifty in that it’s com­pletely free. You can get your credit score as often as you like for as long as you like for free. There are some down­sides, though. Cred­itKarma uses its own scor­ing algo­rithm instead of giv­ing you the more stan­dard FICO score, but there are for­mu­las to con­vert between the two. Also, you only get a score, and not a full credit report. My big com­plaint, though is that the site is more focused on sell­ing you stuff than really help­ing you build your credit score. But again, you can’t beat free, and you can always get credit-​building advice from other places.

And speak­ing of my finan­cial future… the Octo­ber LSATs are pretty much booked solid in north­ern Cal­i­for­nia. The clos­est exam site that still has seats is at UCSC. I don’t know if I want to make a trip of it. Unless peo­ple want to road­trip with me for the week­end. We could head to SoCal after my test, too, if you like. Any tak­ers? (The test would be on Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 4^th, around 12 – 4.)

Tags: Family