no, not w00t. woot!
Woot is a website that only sells one item per day (except for woot-offs, hang on there). Shipping is always just $5, and you can order up to three of the item at once. Sometimes the item sells out early in the day, other times it doesn't sell out at all. The new items go up about midnight, Central time, so back in Florida, sometimes I don't stand a chance at getting the item, since it sells out before I even get up. Now that I live in California, I can see the item before I go to bed, which is rather helpful.
What do they sell? Well, most of the time they are electronics. Everything from DVD sets to computer chips to monitors. Power squids, remote control cars, marshmallow launchers, headlamps. On Tuesdays they sell two of the items at a time, like two bluetooth headsets, earbuds, laser pointers, or cell phone chargers.
There's also one shirt for sale every day, and one wine. The shirts are generally very interesting, and certainly original. I wish that they would re-issue some of their most-popular shirts, as I've missed several that I woulda paid $15 for ($10 is the general shirt price, and then $5 shipping). I've not bought any wine (nor do I know of anyone who has) but the deals seem pretty interesting most of the time.
Okay, now the woot-offs. Woot-offs have a great little theme song, and are basically days when they put up a new item as soon as one is sold out. Although there is a little meter on each item to indicate how many are left, there could be any number of items remaining, so you have to act fast. These are usually days when I am able to get a surprise gift for the hubby, since when there's only one item per day he tends to see it at some point. But, during a woot-off, I've got a chance at ordering something without him noticing that it has gone on sale. Woot-offs are completely random, and don't take place "every other Thursday" or anything like that. They have them when they have them, so you kinda just have to check the website (easy to remember, www.woot.com). If it's a woot-off, there will be a flashing light on the screen, and the "I Want One" button may be bouncing around.
A woot-off started yesterday morning, and is still going on. So, head on over and check out what they've got going. You can RSS the woot-offs (that's what my husband does), or follow them on twitter (that's what I do).
Tip: sometimes the "bag of crap" is good. google around and see what other people ahve got (some people film their reactions for youtube as well)
Friday, March 27, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Hours
It occurred to me the other day that I really enjoy working my own hours. So much so, in fact, that it's been an indirect perk of almost every job I've ever had.
My first job was really easy. In fact, I scrapbooked a year's worth of photos, read 8-10 books, and did a few arts & crafts projects on the clock (my job was pretty dependent on the phone actually ringing, and sometimes nobody would call). It was an office job, so it was 8:30-5, but I could pick my days of the week for the most part (there was one other woman who served in the same position, so between us we made our schedules).
Then I worked as an RA for three years. Aside from the hellish training week and hours during finals weeks, the only set hours I had to work were the weekly meetings. I chose the nights I wanted to be on duty, and the weekends I had to stay in the building. Again, pretty sweet.
There was the summer I spent as a Girl Friday, doing office work and a little babysitting... but I kinda just worked when I wanted. I didn't have a lot of choice, since I didn't get called every day for a job, but if I wanted to have other plans, I could.
I spent two summers working at a camp, and those were real hours. Real as in, 7am-11pm, every day (we generally got Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sunday mornings off... but I was doing a major commute so I wasn't really "off" until 9pm Friday and headed back 8am Sunday). The second summer we got 2 hours off each day. But the first summer was pretty much constant work from wake-up to sleep, and even sometimes middle-of-the-night stuff. Don't get me wrong, I loved that job to death, and would do it again in a heartbeat.
I spent another three semesters as a TA. I was able to choose which section I wanted to handle, and otherwise was only guided by a weekly meeting. Another semester I worked in Research, and only had a weekly meeting to govern me.
There was the year I spent working another easy-peasy job. We only had to go to a meeting once a MONTH, so hours were pretty much whatever.
And then there's my current job. Except for training it's been COMPLETELY whatever-hours-you-want.
I can't say I've ever met anyone else who has had such an easy work schedule. Probably because most people have had either a minimum-wage, part-time job in retail or food service or some other typical-teenage job.... or they've worked for an industry that needs to make use of daylight hours. I hope to have a regular-hours job at some point, since I love routines... but at the same time, it's very nice to take days off whenever I want. It makes traveling ever-so-pleasant. :) and let's not lie, I do enjoy a lot of travel in my life.
anybody else out there never have set working hours?
My first job was really easy. In fact, I scrapbooked a year's worth of photos, read 8-10 books, and did a few arts & crafts projects on the clock (my job was pretty dependent on the phone actually ringing, and sometimes nobody would call). It was an office job, so it was 8:30-5, but I could pick my days of the week for the most part (there was one other woman who served in the same position, so between us we made our schedules).
Then I worked as an RA for three years. Aside from the hellish training week and hours during finals weeks, the only set hours I had to work were the weekly meetings. I chose the nights I wanted to be on duty, and the weekends I had to stay in the building. Again, pretty sweet.
There was the summer I spent as a Girl Friday, doing office work and a little babysitting... but I kinda just worked when I wanted. I didn't have a lot of choice, since I didn't get called every day for a job, but if I wanted to have other plans, I could.
I spent two summers working at a camp, and those were real hours. Real as in, 7am-11pm, every day (we generally got Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sunday mornings off... but I was doing a major commute so I wasn't really "off" until 9pm Friday and headed back 8am Sunday). The second summer we got 2 hours off each day. But the first summer was pretty much constant work from wake-up to sleep, and even sometimes middle-of-the-night stuff. Don't get me wrong, I loved that job to death, and would do it again in a heartbeat.
I spent another three semesters as a TA. I was able to choose which section I wanted to handle, and otherwise was only guided by a weekly meeting. Another semester I worked in Research, and only had a weekly meeting to govern me.
There was the year I spent working another easy-peasy job. We only had to go to a meeting once a MONTH, so hours were pretty much whatever.
And then there's my current job. Except for training it's been COMPLETELY whatever-hours-you-want.
I can't say I've ever met anyone else who has had such an easy work schedule. Probably because most people have had either a minimum-wage, part-time job in retail or food service or some other typical-teenage job.... or they've worked for an industry that needs to make use of daylight hours. I hope to have a regular-hours job at some point, since I love routines... but at the same time, it's very nice to take days off whenever I want. It makes traveling ever-so-pleasant. :) and let's not lie, I do enjoy a lot of travel in my life.
anybody else out there never have set working hours?
Friday, March 20, 2009
Wiki-what?
Web Friday. Today is Wikipedia Day. Why? Because somehow there are people who have not yet realized that Wikipedia is there to help you.
Now, I'm going to start with a disclaimer... Wikipedia is NOT always accurate. And sometimes they are VERY wrong. But, they have really great "lists" of things/people/events, and they can be a good place to go for a quick and easy answer to a simple question.
I wanted to link to an example of a very bad Wikipedia article here, but it'll shortly fix itself. Why? Because the entries are user-created and edited. I personally went and fixed part of the entry for Mrs. Warren's Profession, a play that I did a dramaturgy casebook on my first semester of graduate school. However, on every page you can check out the history of revisions made to that page.
Wikipedia has been around since 2001, and I think I discovered it sometime around 2005. Last August, we surpassed 2.5 million articles in English. There's over 200 languages that you can find articles in, and only about 25% of all articles are in English.
Wikipedia has spurred the creation of many other "wikis." Now, the word "wiki" is Hawaiian for "fast," but it has come to mean "user-edited" and even many online classrooms use a wiki of sorts.
China, Iran, Tunisia, Syria, the UK, and Uzbekistan have all blocked Wikipedia for their countries at one point or another, and Qatar was blocked from using it by Wikipedia admins for a short period of time. China blocked Wikipedia on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square, for one.
And no, just because it's user-run doesn't mean that you can have an article about yourself. All articles need to be worthy of publication... as in, there needs to be secondary material supporting it, in magazines, academic journals, or other media.
Now, a word about reliability and accessibility. Because it's pretty easy to use (although the "sounds like" has been plagues with issues forever), a lot of people use ONLY Wikipedia, rather than relying on it as a starting point from which to build additional research. During the three semesters I spent as a TA, I caught several plagiarizers who used Wikipedia exclusively to write a paper. I'm not going to lecture on plagiarism, but just remember that Wikipedia should NEVER constitute your only source of information. Reliability... while there have been many arguments that users ruin articles by writing about random crap on article pages, the amount of "serious errors" rivals that of any other encyclopedia. That said, I've also talked with students who got entire summaries of plays from the site, and they no don't understand the play.
(flashback to "Frankenstein goes to the Mountains" for my readers who went to high school with me)
If you have not yet gotten addicted to reading about one thing after another (the inter-linkings on the site are crazy-fascinating), go try it. NOW.
Now, I'm going to start with a disclaimer... Wikipedia is NOT always accurate. And sometimes they are VERY wrong. But, they have really great "lists" of things/people/events, and they can be a good place to go for a quick and easy answer to a simple question.
I wanted to link to an example of a very bad Wikipedia article here, but it'll shortly fix itself. Why? Because the entries are user-created and edited. I personally went and fixed part of the entry for Mrs. Warren's Profession, a play that I did a dramaturgy casebook on my first semester of graduate school. However, on every page you can check out the history of revisions made to that page.
Wikipedia has been around since 2001, and I think I discovered it sometime around 2005. Last August, we surpassed 2.5 million articles in English. There's over 200 languages that you can find articles in, and only about 25% of all articles are in English.
Wikipedia has spurred the creation of many other "wikis." Now, the word "wiki" is Hawaiian for "fast," but it has come to mean "user-edited" and even many online classrooms use a wiki of sorts.
China, Iran, Tunisia, Syria, the UK, and Uzbekistan have all blocked Wikipedia for their countries at one point or another, and Qatar was blocked from using it by Wikipedia admins for a short period of time. China blocked Wikipedia on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square, for one.
And no, just because it's user-run doesn't mean that you can have an article about yourself. All articles need to be worthy of publication... as in, there needs to be secondary material supporting it, in magazines, academic journals, or other media.
Now, a word about reliability and accessibility. Because it's pretty easy to use (although the "sounds like" has been plagues with issues forever), a lot of people use ONLY Wikipedia, rather than relying on it as a starting point from which to build additional research. During the three semesters I spent as a TA, I caught several plagiarizers who used Wikipedia exclusively to write a paper. I'm not going to lecture on plagiarism, but just remember that Wikipedia should NEVER constitute your only source of information. Reliability... while there have been many arguments that users ruin articles by writing about random crap on article pages, the amount of "serious errors" rivals that of any other encyclopedia. That said, I've also talked with students who got entire summaries of plays from the site, and they no don't understand the play.
(flashback to "Frankenstein goes to the Mountains" for my readers who went to high school with me)
If you have not yet gotten addicted to reading about one thing after another (the inter-linkings on the site are crazy-fascinating), go try it. NOW.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Airports
Airports fascinate me. My first flight was Miami-Heathrow, so I experienced very large airports (and very large aircrafts) first. The first time I flew out of Tallahassee, I was shocked that sometimes you have to actually walk out onto the tarmac and climb stairs to board the plane... as if it was still the 1970s. This past summer I flew in and out of the tiniest airport... Cedar City, Utah. It was pretty much a lodge, with a whopping 40 seats in one room, with a fireplace. There were about five employees in the whole place, and you had to wait until someone was "manning security" before you could pass through an all-glass room to get to the "terminal room." But, there was free internet, so that worked for me.
When I'm planning a trip (which I do quite a bit of), part of my planning process is choosing airports for layovers. There are a few airports I've hit several times, and a bunch that I loathe (along with a few that I LOVE). I'm sure you feel the same (assuming that you enjoy flying, since there are people who don't, and tend to book non-stop flights if at all possible). What makes a good layover airport for me:
- good choice of eateries of all types. if they only have good lunch places, they're not going to be ideal for an early-morning flight. this also means that they need to have more than one coffee shop, in the event I want something caffein-y, as I do not enjoy a 20-minute wait.
- no more than three terminals. I inevitably end up needing to travel from one to the other, and if the layover is short, I freak out about rushing to the far-end of the airport.
- some neat shops. not the typical bookstore and Brookstone, but something regional. I VERY rarely buy anything, but I love to browse.
- free internet. when I travel, I tend to get behind in correspondence and other reading, so I try to get online when possible (especially if I'm staying at a hotel that charges big bucks to get online).
- accessible wall outlets. I know that many airports now have charging stations. But those areas are generally crowded, and I appreciate being able to find a more secluded spot, yet still be able to charge my cell phone or plug in my laptop (because I think it's selfish to use more than one outlet, and people at the charging stations generally feel there's no shame in taking up four spaces each).
- interesting architecture. this one isn't as big a deal as some of the others, but particularly if I'm traveling alone, I love to wander the entire airport, marvelling at the design of the place.
- terminals that don't regionalize their gates. Meaning, I don't like sitting in a terminal (example Salt Lake City) and every gate around me is going to a really close place (in SLC, I sat near people going to various California, Utah, and Nevada cities). I much prefer sitting in a terminal where people are going to NYC, Chicago, ATL, Vegas, etc. This makes for much more interesting people-watching. ;)
Using these standards, my absolute favorite layover airport is Cincinatti. My least favorite is LAX.
Cincinatti: Wetzel's Pretzels (2), Auntie Anne's, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks (3), Peet's (2), Quizno's, Subway, Carvel/Cinnabon, Mrs. Fields/TCBY, Sbarro, QDOBA, a chili place. Then there's a "Kentucky" shop and a toy store. Internet's free in Terminal B. And there is a ton of seating with NOBODY there... outlets are a little sparse, but worse has happened.
LAX: omg useless. the place was designed a million years ago, and the trams and planes share travel space. Don't change terminals (and there's like 8 of them) or you have to go through security AGAIN. There may be a Boudin (2) but not much else of interest aside from See's Candy. The place is crowded. And delays are everywhere. People drag their kids behind them. There are no outlets. The only thing I like about LAX are the commuter flights to San Diego... easy.
Other thoughts I have on airports:
Airports I favor: Orlando.
Airports I have no opinion about: Atlanta. Miami. Denver. Raleigh. CDG.
Airports I avoid: Tampa. Salt Lake City. SeaTac.
This weekend, I'll add Phoenix to the list of airports I've had a layover in, and I imagine I'll talk about it a bit over on my other blog. Which airports are your favorite? What qualities do you look for?
When I'm planning a trip (which I do quite a bit of), part of my planning process is choosing airports for layovers. There are a few airports I've hit several times, and a bunch that I loathe (along with a few that I LOVE). I'm sure you feel the same (assuming that you enjoy flying, since there are people who don't, and tend to book non-stop flights if at all possible). What makes a good layover airport for me:
- good choice of eateries of all types. if they only have good lunch places, they're not going to be ideal for an early-morning flight. this also means that they need to have more than one coffee shop, in the event I want something caffein-y, as I do not enjoy a 20-minute wait.
- no more than three terminals. I inevitably end up needing to travel from one to the other, and if the layover is short, I freak out about rushing to the far-end of the airport.
- some neat shops. not the typical bookstore and Brookstone, but something regional. I VERY rarely buy anything, but I love to browse.
- free internet. when I travel, I tend to get behind in correspondence and other reading, so I try to get online when possible (especially if I'm staying at a hotel that charges big bucks to get online).
- accessible wall outlets. I know that many airports now have charging stations. But those areas are generally crowded, and I appreciate being able to find a more secluded spot, yet still be able to charge my cell phone or plug in my laptop (because I think it's selfish to use more than one outlet, and people at the charging stations generally feel there's no shame in taking up four spaces each).
- interesting architecture. this one isn't as big a deal as some of the others, but particularly if I'm traveling alone, I love to wander the entire airport, marvelling at the design of the place.
- terminals that don't regionalize their gates. Meaning, I don't like sitting in a terminal (example Salt Lake City) and every gate around me is going to a really close place (in SLC, I sat near people going to various California, Utah, and Nevada cities). I much prefer sitting in a terminal where people are going to NYC, Chicago, ATL, Vegas, etc. This makes for much more interesting people-watching. ;)
Using these standards, my absolute favorite layover airport is Cincinatti. My least favorite is LAX.
Cincinatti: Wetzel's Pretzels (2), Auntie Anne's, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks (3), Peet's (2), Quizno's, Subway, Carvel/Cinnabon, Mrs. Fields/TCBY, Sbarro, QDOBA, a chili place. Then there's a "Kentucky" shop and a toy store. Internet's free in Terminal B. And there is a ton of seating with NOBODY there... outlets are a little sparse, but worse has happened.
LAX: omg useless. the place was designed a million years ago, and the trams and planes share travel space. Don't change terminals (and there's like 8 of them) or you have to go through security AGAIN. There may be a Boudin (2) but not much else of interest aside from See's Candy. The place is crowded. And delays are everywhere. People drag their kids behind them. There are no outlets. The only thing I like about LAX are the commuter flights to San Diego... easy.
Other thoughts I have on airports:
Airports I favor: Orlando.
Airports I have no opinion about: Atlanta. Miami. Denver. Raleigh. CDG.
Airports I avoid: Tampa. Salt Lake City. SeaTac.
This weekend, I'll add Phoenix to the list of airports I've had a layover in, and I imagine I'll talk about it a bit over on my other blog. Which airports are your favorite? What qualities do you look for?
Friday, March 13, 2009
Facebook Changed... Again.
I wasn't planning to write about Facebook this week, but since they just rolled out a new homepage, I thought it would be an appropriate topic. And in case you're unfamiliar with it, it's very different from MySpace. Facebook is to re-connect and stay connected with people you already know. MySpace is more about finding new friends and being able to express yourself through music and HTML, LoL. After all, Facebook started out only being for colleges and universities, then extending to the workplace, then high schools, and finally, anyone.
If you're not on Facebook, get on it. There's no reason not to. It makes it easy to keep contact with friends, relatives, neighbors, and colleagues. And you can set your privacy settings to control what people see. Meaning, if you don't want to put up your job information, don't. If you don't want people to see your photo albums, you can make that happen. AND, if you only want certain lists of friends to see certain things (like, block your photos and wall comments from your co-workers), that's easy, too. Just group people together, and set a preference to keep that list from seeing stuff. You can also block individual people (ideal if you're a gamer and added a few friends solely for gaming purposes and you don't really know them in real life).
For those who have been on Facebook for years (I joined in the Fall of 2004), you've seen a TON of changes. Back before you could add pictures. Before there were applications. Before there were notes. When there were a finite number of groups, and it was still plausible to browse through ALL the groups in your network in just an hour or two. Before events. I fought just one of the renovations (the one that put "new" in front of the URL for a while), but I got over it.
The current homepage now has three columns, although the first one is pretty much just designed to allow you to navigate the middle column. I think that it made it much easier to see what's going on with certain people (for instance, I'm living in California, away from anyone in my LARGE family, so I created a group and put all my aunts, cousins, etc. in that list. Now I can get all the latest updates on them with one click). So far, while a lot of people have been complaining about the new format, I only have one complaint. My "lists" are now on my homepage, and I have a lot of groupings that are not for public viewing. Not that I'm in the library checking my Facebook, but still.
Because there are so many different sections of Facebook, it's not really ideal to cover all of them. However, they're not hard to explore, and while some people are only on it because it's "the thing to do," I really do support its effectiveness in keeping in touch so much more than classmates or reunion.com or Friendster, or any other website designed for this.
If you're not on Facebook, get on it. There's no reason not to. It makes it easy to keep contact with friends, relatives, neighbors, and colleagues. And you can set your privacy settings to control what people see. Meaning, if you don't want to put up your job information, don't. If you don't want people to see your photo albums, you can make that happen. AND, if you only want certain lists of friends to see certain things (like, block your photos and wall comments from your co-workers), that's easy, too. Just group people together, and set a preference to keep that list from seeing stuff. You can also block individual people (ideal if you're a gamer and added a few friends solely for gaming purposes and you don't really know them in real life).
For those who have been on Facebook for years (I joined in the Fall of 2004), you've seen a TON of changes. Back before you could add pictures. Before there were applications. Before there were notes. When there were a finite number of groups, and it was still plausible to browse through ALL the groups in your network in just an hour or two. Before events. I fought just one of the renovations (the one that put "new" in front of the URL for a while), but I got over it.
The current homepage now has three columns, although the first one is pretty much just designed to allow you to navigate the middle column. I think that it made it much easier to see what's going on with certain people (for instance, I'm living in California, away from anyone in my LARGE family, so I created a group and put all my aunts, cousins, etc. in that list. Now I can get all the latest updates on them with one click). So far, while a lot of people have been complaining about the new format, I only have one complaint. My "lists" are now on my homepage, and I have a lot of groupings that are not for public viewing. Not that I'm in the library checking my Facebook, but still.
Because there are so many different sections of Facebook, it's not really ideal to cover all of them. However, they're not hard to explore, and while some people are only on it because it's "the thing to do," I really do support its effectiveness in keeping in touch so much more than classmates or reunion.com or Friendster, or any other website designed for this.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
"I Love Chocolate"
When we were last in San Francisco, there were tons of people handing out flyers and pamphlets, especially in Chinatown since it was the week of the Chinese New Year Celebration. One of the most interesting ones was a trifold entitled, "I Love Chocolate" (with a cartoon girl drinking a double mocha espresso). The cartoons are kinda dumpy, but amusing.
The inside goes on to read:
"Surveys show that more people prefer chocolate to any other comfort food. (kids eating chocolate) Chocolate can give you energy when you're feeling burned out... (boss encouraging worker) Chocolate can keep you company when you're feeling lonely... (girl eating cake and crying and saying she doesn't need friends) Chocolate can make just about anything seem better than it really is... (guy sells girl a chocolate-colored car) But the 'comfort' we get from chocolate doesn't last. Thing seem better for a little while, but then we inevitably crash! (boss fires the worker from before; kid with bag over head holding Clearasil is called on the phone about a party he missed; brown car breaks down with girl driving) Pretty discouraging, huh? Well, cheer up - there's a comfort far better than chocolate... ...and it's found in Jesus - the one and only, no caffeine, zero calorie source of comfort! He has promised us, 'come to me all you who are weary... (guy holds classifieds, girl holds steering wheel) ...and burdened, and I will give you rest' (Mathew 11:28). Jesus won't let you down like some chocolate sugar high. He fed the hungry, he healed the sick, he died for your sins and he'll 'Be with you always, until the end of time' (Matthew 28:20). That's more than Mr. Goodbar every did for you! Try the ultimate comfort food (the Bible) and see for yourself: with Jesus 'You will rejoice and no one will take away your joy' (John 16:22).
it's a Jews for Jesus pamphlet, with a "please don't litter" message at the bottom of the back fold.
Really? Comparing Jesus to chocolate. that's new. and weird. and I really don't think it's a good metaphor.
Oh, and if you don't know what Jews for Jesus is... there are branches of them throughout the world, and San Francisco is the homebase. They are more about being Jews by birth, not by faith. They're really into being evangelical and converting other Jews to Christianity. They're rejected by all sects of Judaism, from what I know.
The inside goes on to read:
"Surveys show that more people prefer chocolate to any other comfort food. (kids eating chocolate) Chocolate can give you energy when you're feeling burned out... (boss encouraging worker) Chocolate can keep you company when you're feeling lonely... (girl eating cake and crying and saying she doesn't need friends) Chocolate can make just about anything seem better than it really is... (guy sells girl a chocolate-colored car) But the 'comfort' we get from chocolate doesn't last. Thing seem better for a little while, but then we inevitably crash! (boss fires the worker from before; kid with bag over head holding Clearasil is called on the phone about a party he missed; brown car breaks down with girl driving) Pretty discouraging, huh? Well, cheer up - there's a comfort far better than chocolate... ...and it's found in Jesus - the one and only, no caffeine, zero calorie source of comfort! He has promised us, 'come to me all you who are weary... (guy holds classifieds, girl holds steering wheel) ...and burdened, and I will give you rest' (Mathew 11:28). Jesus won't let you down like some chocolate sugar high. He fed the hungry, he healed the sick, he died for your sins and he'll 'Be with you always, until the end of time' (Matthew 28:20). That's more than Mr. Goodbar every did for you! Try the ultimate comfort food (the Bible) and see for yourself: with Jesus 'You will rejoice and no one will take away your joy' (John 16:22).
it's a Jews for Jesus pamphlet, with a "please don't litter" message at the bottom of the back fold.
Really? Comparing Jesus to chocolate. that's new. and weird. and I really don't think it's a good metaphor.
Oh, and if you don't know what Jews for Jesus is... there are branches of them throughout the world, and San Francisco is the homebase. They are more about being Jews by birth, not by faith. They're really into being evangelical and converting other Jews to Christianity. They're rejected by all sects of Judaism, from what I know.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Mint.com
Hello folks, another Friday here. Today I want to talk about Mint.com, a banking website. It's been around since late 2007
Now, my first qualm with the idea is that you have to put in ALL you bank accounts, credit cards, etc. to use it. Hello, identity theft, is that you calling? But, the accolades of the site's security and privacy are high and praised, so I guess it's worth it. Once again, my husband is the one who turned me onto it, pretty much by default (he was already using it when we got married). However, I now check it more often than he does, mostly because I'm paranoid about being charged multiple times for a purchase (happened on three occasions so far since I've had a credit card), and I love to see "where my money goes."
The concept is pretty simple, actually. It sorts all charges (restaurant, entertainment, utility bill, shopping, gas, etc.) and creates a big pie chart. Within each section you can see the breakdown in another pie chart (food & dining is broken into groceries, fast food, restaurants, bars, coffee shops), and then each of those makes another pie chart if clicked on (like in 'fast food' the pie chart is made up of the different fast food places you go to). You can make it do these pie charts for any set number of months, from the past year to the past month, and any combination in the middle (like how much money did you spend on movies last summer... yikes!). Oh, and if you don't agree with the way it sorted something (for instance, we consider Subway fast food but I think Mint originally thought it was a restaurant), you can change rules and then it'll back-fix and future-sort from that point on.
Something good... you can compare month-to-month pretty easily. Something even better... Mint will recommend credit cards for you based on your credit history and where you spend your money. It recommended a great card for my husband and myself (we didn't go with it in the end, though), that gave 5% back if you charged more than $200/month on dining out and entertainment (and it had a broad definition of entertainment), and some other good rewards. Something pretty cool... you can set budgets (or use default averages as budgets), and on your home page, it'll show you a bar graph on how you're doing on different budgets throughout the month (we have one for food and one for entertainment, for instance). The only bad thing about budgets are expenses which hit only a few times a year (like car insurance or tuition) make it seem like you went over in an area (like Education) at first.
Not only can it let you know whenever you have a credit card bill coming up, you can also set it to alert you via email or text message whenever your available credit drops below a certain number, or you make a purchase over a certain amount, or even when you have a bill due in xx days.
The really strange things about Mint is that the people who need to use it the most don't. The average user (and there are over half a million users) makes more than $100k/year, meaning most people who live at the poverty line or are working minimum-wage jobs aren't using this great tool. Because it's so easy to use, I really don't understand why they don't jump on the bandwagon (unless people are stubborn and are still using Quicken. yikes). The only thing I can come up with is that they aren't reading enough and therefore do not understand the there's not as much risk involved as an onlooker may assume.
One thing I wish... that I had used it during graduate school to better track how many thousands of dollars I spent on books. Let's not lie, Amazon and Half.com got a huge chunk of my salary for two years.
Do you use Mint? Quicken? Wesabe? Geezeo? something else? tell us about how you like it.
Now, my first qualm with the idea is that you have to put in ALL you bank accounts, credit cards, etc. to use it. Hello, identity theft, is that you calling? But, the accolades of the site's security and privacy are high and praised, so I guess it's worth it. Once again, my husband is the one who turned me onto it, pretty much by default (he was already using it when we got married). However, I now check it more often than he does, mostly because I'm paranoid about being charged multiple times for a purchase (happened on three occasions so far since I've had a credit card), and I love to see "where my money goes."
The concept is pretty simple, actually. It sorts all charges (restaurant, entertainment, utility bill, shopping, gas, etc.) and creates a big pie chart. Within each section you can see the breakdown in another pie chart (food & dining is broken into groceries, fast food, restaurants, bars, coffee shops), and then each of those makes another pie chart if clicked on (like in 'fast food' the pie chart is made up of the different fast food places you go to). You can make it do these pie charts for any set number of months, from the past year to the past month, and any combination in the middle (like how much money did you spend on movies last summer... yikes!). Oh, and if you don't agree with the way it sorted something (for instance, we consider Subway fast food but I think Mint originally thought it was a restaurant), you can change rules and then it'll back-fix and future-sort from that point on.
Something good... you can compare month-to-month pretty easily. Something even better... Mint will recommend credit cards for you based on your credit history and where you spend your money. It recommended a great card for my husband and myself (we didn't go with it in the end, though), that gave 5% back if you charged more than $200/month on dining out and entertainment (and it had a broad definition of entertainment), and some other good rewards. Something pretty cool... you can set budgets (or use default averages as budgets), and on your home page, it'll show you a bar graph on how you're doing on different budgets throughout the month (we have one for food and one for entertainment, for instance). The only bad thing about budgets are expenses which hit only a few times a year (like car insurance or tuition) make it seem like you went over in an area (like Education) at first.
Not only can it let you know whenever you have a credit card bill coming up, you can also set it to alert you via email or text message whenever your available credit drops below a certain number, or you make a purchase over a certain amount, or even when you have a bill due in xx days.
The really strange things about Mint is that the people who need to use it the most don't. The average user (and there are over half a million users) makes more than $100k/year, meaning most people who live at the poverty line or are working minimum-wage jobs aren't using this great tool. Because it's so easy to use, I really don't understand why they don't jump on the bandwagon (unless people are stubborn and are still using Quicken. yikes). The only thing I can come up with is that they aren't reading enough and therefore do not understand the there's not as much risk involved as an onlooker may assume.
One thing I wish... that I had used it during graduate school to better track how many thousands of dollars I spent on books. Let's not lie, Amazon and Half.com got a huge chunk of my salary for two years.
Do you use Mint? Quicken? Wesabe? Geezeo? something else? tell us about how you like it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)