Elsja Down Under

Mint April 20, 2009

I discovered an awesome new website yesterday.

MINT

It’s a cool site where you can add all of your checking and savings accounts, credit cards, student loans, car loans, investments and property info as well as track your spending and budget all in ONE place. It’s sweet!! I just linked up all my accounts and there they all are… right on one page.

The interface is pretty clean and easy to use- check it out below (don’t mind all the orange lines where my account totals would be). It imports all your transaction data and gives you cool charts to track spending and allows you to create custom budgets. You can set up notifications to let you know when payments clear, when you go over budget, etc.

My only gripe is that I can’t link up any of my aussie accounts. So, in all reality- this site does me little good since all my purchases and bills are paid here; however, since it is such a cool site, I thought I’d write about it for any people in the US who may be looking for some cool (and free) financial/budgeting software.

 

Also, I found this other site- THRIVE. It is a very similar concept and actually looks a bit cooler to me- but once I discovered that I couldn’t link my Aussie accounts there either, I didn’t even bother joining.

Hopefully one day they will add the ability to link to international banks and then I will be very, very happy!

How Many Banks do YOU Use? May 29, 2008

So I was thinking yesterday, I use 6 banks. Yes, 6! I never really thought about it until I went to make a withdraw and really had to think about which ATM card to pull out of my wallet. Depending on which bank I’m at (and which account I need to withdraw from) I have to use the right card. It’s not an easy thing to keep straight!!

So in the US, I have 2 banks:

Citibank- I still have this open even though I don’t use it much anymore.

B of A- This is where my paychecks go

ING- I use this for my savings because the interest rates are much higher than Citibank or BofA

In Australia:

Westpac – don’t actually have an account here, but this is where I have to make withdraws from my US Bank of America account. If I go to ANY other bank, I’ll get charged a crapload of fees. So, when I want to get money out from my US account, I go to Westpac and it’s free!

Citibank – So once I withdraw money from Westpac, I have to put it into an Australian account. I could use westpac to make it easy (withdraw and deposit at the same place) but Westpac has way more fees… so I have an Aussie citibank account because then I can use that ATM card to make purchases and I can also use my Citibank ATM card at ANY Aussie ATM for free.

NAB – Again, I don’t actually have an NAB account- but when I withdraw from Westpac and deposit into Citibank, I actually have to make the deposit at NAB. It’s the only bank that takes citibank deposits (citibank doesn’t have branches).

Luckily, Westpac and NAB are within a 2 minute walk from each other, so I just walk into one and then straight over to the other. And I do all this to keep my bank fees at 5 bucks a month. Not too bad considering I’m doing some serious international withdraws and deposits!!! Ahh…the price I pay to prevent paying high prices!