This is the question that Mint.com asked me when I was trying out their “online money management website”.

Mint is a piece of software that will download transaction history information from your bank’s website, and put it up against your other account information to create a comprehensive reporting of where your money is going.

The trick is, if you are like me and spend alot of cash, it doesn’t explain everything.  The things it does the best with are your electronic transfers.  The times when you used your debit card to pay for things.

Some features that I liked:

It hooked into Sallie Mae and all my bank accounts, and then it calculated my net worth.  I don’t like my net worth, but to be able to monitor it here was very cool.

It will give you graphs that show you how your total spending breaks down.

It will help you set up a budget and monitor your spending.

If your account gets low, it sends you an email.

If you have an “alert” like a finance charge from the bank, it will tell you.

I’m on my phone posting this, actually.

I was looking for a barcode scanner application and found pricepad instead. It is a free app that allows you to save information about items you want to buy to your phone.
You can save name, price, barcode number, genre of item, and personal notes. Then when you are looking at the same item later, you can search through your saved items.

I am going to give it a try for grocery shopping, starting by putting the items from the circulars in first.

We went to King Soopers tonight and bought groceries:

Our total: $197.33

Store discounts: $26.84

Coupons: $9.30

Multiplied Coupons: $4.10 (doubled up to a dollar)

Grand Total: $157.09

We saved 20% on our bill!!!

Now for the fun part. We guessed at how many meals we were planning on getting out of this trip to the grocery store: (a meal may be breakfast, lunch or dinner. All numbers are guesses based on past experience)

Macaroni grill + chicken: 6 meals

Chili: 8 meals

Spaghetti in the crock pot: 6 meals

Sausage and O’Brien potatoes: 4 meals

Red Beans and Rice: 4 meals

Bagels + cream Cheese (1 for breakfast): 10 meals

Box of cereal: 7 meals

Total: 45 meals

Cost per meal: $3.49

This price per meal also includes all of the cleaning supplies that we got, and the $14.00 we spent on cat food (which we pay our grocery envelope back from our pet envelope, see envelope system). Without the cat food, the cost per meal goes to: $3.17 per meal.

I will try to update these numbers as we make the meals, to tell you how many actual servings we got out of each one. This way, you can have the true numbers as they come out.

We made all the meals we mentioned and were only off by 4 meals total, mostly because we just ate too much when we made it…Oops.  Either way, that means that we got away with $3.83 per meal that week.

I ran into some problems with a cell-phone carrier, who hasn’t.  Right?  You can read a diatribe about what happened here: Been Cheated By: Sprint.

What I learned in this situation was that using the telephone support, while convenient, is a pain in the butt and not worth the time.  Going into a store, and dealing with a real person is way better.

I worked with the manager at the store near my house when I had a problem (not the first, not the last), and she got to know my face.  When she had the problem taken care of, I told her “I’ll see you when it happens again”. Her response “Hopefully, you will not have problems any more”.

Two weeks later, I was back in the store.  She fixed the problem, apologized, and as I left I told her that I would see her again when it happens again.  She replied with the same answer as before.

When I went back in the store with the last problem, she wasn’t there, but her employee called her and they worked together (the manager at home with her daughter) to find a solution.  Corporate found a temporary solution, but it was ludicrous and I was done dealing with the issues.  I asked her to cancel the cell contract, and to have the carrier pay for the cancellation fees.  Since the manager knew me, and had personally dealt with my problems, she was able to convince the carrier that I had been harassed enough and that they needed to let me go for free.

The Moral: when you have a problem with a company, deal with the same person repeatedly so that you can have some history with them.  Then when it is time to get some real work done, they know what is going on and can take care of the problem immediately and conclusively.

I have been told in the past to not spend the extra money for the warranty, because it isnt worth it.  But, I have learned in the real world, it is.

I live with the philosophy that Murphy’s Law is just waiting to raise some hell. So, I do my best to try to keep him at bay by preparing for the worst.  This means warranties.

Ok, here’s what I have learned:

1. If I buy something and a warranty is offered, I will wish I had the warranty as I throw the item away and go to buy a new one
2. If I buy the warranty, I usually end up wondering why I bought it because I didnt need it.  The item worked the way it should, and I end up replacing it when I am sick of it, not when it breaks.

I admit, there are special cases here.  But, if you go with #2, the special cases are not an issue. Case in point: you have to cash in on the warranty.  Problem solved, you get a new gadget.

A story (some names have been changed):

My dad and step mom are the thriftiest people I know. They do everything possibly to save money, and well…who can blame them.  However, when they bought their Gigantitron Projection TV for their living room, they spent the extra money on a warranty.  When the TV stopped working, they took it in, and the repair man couldn’t get the part they needed.  So, Huge Mart replaced the TV with an equivalent sized, same brand, Plasma for free.

This is a true story. If you dont get the warranty after that, I dont know what is wrong with you.

The last story, also true, happened to me.  Twice.

I have an iPhone, because I am a closet (OK not so much), technophile and I had the opportunity to get one (long story, I will post about this later).  I had the phone for about 7 months when the phone locked up and wouldnt do anything but give me the little white apple image.  So I took it in, and the apple store handed me a new phone.

Then I lost my iPhone headphones (made by apple), the ones with the mic, and bought new ones on ebay.  They were knock offs and didn’t work.  There was no return policy and it was not even worth trying to contact the seller.  So, I bought official Apple iPhone headphones from an AT&T store.  7 days later, the mic stopped working. So, I walked back into the AT&T store, and was given new ones with no problems or questions.

The point of the story is, Apple ensures their products (this is like a warranty – but not as good as AppleCare), so long as it is something they did wrong in manufacturing or design and  if you take care of what you bought from them, they will replace it for free.

If you buy smart, and get warranties where you can, you will be much better off by avoiding Murphy and handling the exceptions to the rule.  Sometimes, planning ahead pays off.