Mint is Wrong

29/07/2008

Mint is confused and just sent me an email:

Hi there,

Over the last 30 days you spent $Y on Mortgage & Rent. You usually spend $Z.

A few things to consider:

  • My rent increased a few months ago from $X to $Y.
  • $X > $Z, by over $400.
  • I pay rent every single month.
  • I pay rent at the beginning of the month. It’s now the 29th.

My conclusions:

  • Mint doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about.
  • Mint’s unusual-spending notices are not timely and are therefore useless.
  • Mint does not adapt to small and expected changes in spending (like rent increases) so its unusual-spending notices are false positives (and useless) far too often.

Wait, why do I use Mint again?

There are 3 comments in this article:

  1. 5/08/2008the matthew show say:

    What I’d like to know is why your dates are listed UK style (day/month/year). Why do you hate America?

  2. 5/08/2008the matthew show say:

    Also, why are the comments ebonicized? “the matthew show say…”

    Fo shizzlenit.

  3. 6/11/2008jason say:

    I don’t think something like a rent increase is “expected” as it only happens once a year. I think something like paying for gas would be an expected monthly change.

    I’m not standing up for mint though. I signed up for it, logged into it a few times, and haven’t checked it in months. I think all these services need something that prunes users every six months. Mint, MySpace, Facebook, all of them.

Write a comment: