Today was Jay and my first Alumni Softball Game. I am proud to announce that we had a lot of fun and I am looking forward to playing this season. Good-bye kickball.
After Softball, Jay and I went downtown to the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler Expo. We went a little overboard with our purchases, including Run Baltimore shirts, an IT Band strap and stickers (eek!). But, by far, my favorite shirt was the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler upgrade.
The design is the race course. How cool is that?!?! As I have mentioned before, this race will be a lot of fun for Jay and I as we did not train as well as we wanted. The goal is to finish and have fun. Honestly, I think that should always be every runners goal.
And of course today ended with our traditional pre-race dinner, My Vegetarian Pasta and a Blue Moon. The pasta had a little variation, no zucchini, add frozen mixed peppers and left over jarred sauce. Regardless, it was delicious and the perfect pre-race meal.
And, finally, yes, I caved! I decided to try Mint.com. I like the idea that Mint.com gives me pretty pie charts that I am too lazy to create in excel and it is nice that Mint.com automatically attempts to sort my spending into categories.
OK, okay, I now know why so many people like it. Mint.com is a very easy way to budget your money if you have NOT been tracking your spending like I have, since your freshman year of college.
For the month of April, I am going to use Mint.com and excel. If Mint.com proves to be the easier more practical solution then I will say good-bye to excel and join the masses. It is about time right?
My complaints so far is that I can not figure out how to change the master categories. In my excel budget, I am used to sorting my variable expense by: Jay, Gifts, Clothing, Restaurants, Travel and Miscellaneous. Mint.com does not think Jay is a worthy master category.
As for sub-categories, I really do not like that Groceries and Restaurants are grouped together under Food & Dining. In my mind Groceries are a necessity and Restaurants are a luxury. My other pet-peeve with this category is that Mint.com always wants to sort every Restaurant purchase into Alcohol, Fast Food, Restaurant and Coffee. I do not spend enough in some of those categories every month (if I even go) to budget for it. Instead, I only keep track of my Restaurant purchases and that includes everything: Alcohol, Fast Food, Coffee, Frozen Yogurt, etc.
I know technology upgrades take time. And, I know in a year I will pull up this post and laugh. I just think it is a good idea to document the transition.
If you use Mint.com, what do you think? You love it, hate it, neutral?
If you do not use Mint.com, how do you budget?
