(WZZM) - Charles Dillman admittedly needs a little help controlling his spending. He's is in the process of finishing off his basement, but is taking the project only as fast as his bank account will allow.
To better control his bank account, his savings account and his car loan, he recently signed-up with www.mint.com . The site is a one-stop website for users to access several accounts and keep an eye on exactly where their money is going.
The first thing users come across is the site asking for your user names and passwords to directly link all of your accounts into mint.com. Some people have a problem with this for fear of giving up too much valuable information.
"A friend recommended it, but it's a website and I know how dangerous that world is," said Charles. "But when I saw the parent company is the company that makes the TurboTax software, a multi-million dollar company, I figured there was no harm in it."
So far, his hunch has proven him right. Charles hasn't had any security issues with the website and says it's very user friendly.
Charles used the site on both his computer and the mobile app. He also liked how it doesn't prohibit him from spending. "If you go over because life happens, it doesn't say 'We're not going to allow you to pull out money.' It doesn't take that kind of control."
Charles did run into some problems with mint.com after a recent visit to Meijer. He bought some building supplies for his basement project, but becasue Meijer is listed as a grocery store, it considered the money spent as part of his grocery budget.
"So now I get e-mails telling me I've gone over my grocery budget, when in reality, I spent twenty bucks," explained Charles.
The problem can be fixed. It just takes a little manual adjusting, taking away much of the ease and convenience from Charles' experience. Because of this, Charles has stopped actively using the site, although his account information is still current.
"If you go to a multi-faceted business like Meijer or Wal-Mart, then you have to come home and itemize everything. So while it's more convenient in some ways, it's more work in other ways."
That experience didn't stop Charles from recommending mint.com. "If someone is not as detail-oriented and just wanted to do a set budget of 'x' amount of dollars per month, I would assume it would work fine. I'm a little bit more specific than that. I don't want to have just one thing. I want to know where my money is going," Charles explained. "I like it because it does it for free. I don't have to pay someone else to monitor it, so I don't have to worry about spending money that I don't have."
After all, every little bit of money he's able to save, the quicker he can complete his basement project.
"There is a lot of work to be done to the house, so every dollar we can save by using the program helps."