Mint.com

We've long been fans of using personal finance software because it helps us track our day to day spending and long term investments. We see the tool as an important key to helping us achieve financial independence. For years, we've used Microsoft's Money software. While the software was feature laden, I still had to key in some transactions manually every day as the product did not download transactions automatically all the time. Also, the data lived only on one PC. If I wanted to quickly check our financial situation, I would be out of luck if I wasn't near our computer. So I started looking at web-based personal finance programs and the one that I tried out was Mint.com. It works like this: The user looks for their financial institutions and enter their username and passwords on Mint. Mint then aggregates all this information and presents it in an easy to read format. The best part is that Mint automatically downloads the transactions every day so when you log in, the transactions are there ready to be reviewed. It also tries its best guess in categorizing the transaction (which can be manually overriden by the user, and it can also be split).

Mint also has a robust reporting tool that is fully date and category customizable. Very useful to see which spending categories are out of whack or are underspent. You can also construct a budget and Mint will automatically track your spending and alert you (via email or text) if you have spent more than the amount you alloted for that category. Finally, Mint also has an Investments section that tracks the performance and purchases of your investments.

There are some cons however. The big one is that the user has to be comfortable providing all their usernames and passwords to Mint as it is now all stored in one place and in theory, a hacker now can have access to all of your accounts in a single shot. However, Mint uses Yodlee security, which all the large financial institutions use. Also, having Mint store all the login information is actually useful because now you can see, on one webpage, all the transactions that have posted to your accounts, whether its legit or not. So it's easier to spot fraudulent transactions. Another Mint limitation is the inability to enter manual accounts and transactions. Not all my financial institutions are supported unfortunately, and my local credit union is not on the list. So I have to login to that bank separately. But Mint is adding new financial institutions every day and hopefully my credit union can be included in future updates.

Since Mint and my data resides in the "cloud" now, the single best attribute is now I can access my account from anywhere at anytime. I mostly access it from a laptop or desktop, but I also use Mint's iPhone/iPod Touch app to get a quick snapshot of my accounts when I am on the road.

Overall, Mint is a viable replacement to Microsoft Money and if anything, I've saved so much time not having to enter transactions manually. I am confident in the security of my accounts, and I find anytime/anywhere access of my data extremely convenient. The reporting features are also top notch. Best of all, Mint is free!

Baby Beltran 2 - Coming December 2009!

Lucas is going to have a sibling! Baby Beltran #2 is coming this December 2009, and baby is going to be a girl! Stay tuned to this blog for more updates as the date gets nearer and nearer.

Green Living

Back in 2006, mainly in the spirit of saving money, I embarked on finding ways to make our Lakewood house more energy efficient. Of course, during the process, I learned that this "greening" process also saves the environment. Here is a list of what we've done to the house (click for a PDF version of the presentation that I did at my work):

• Replaced 30 incandescent bulbs with 30 compact fluorescent bulbs

• Replaced a 15 year old refrigerator with an Energy Star certified refrigerator

• Replaced a 20 year old water heater and set it at 120 degrees

• Cut off gas flow to floor heater that we never use

• Installed low flow shower heads faucet aerators

• Installed fiberglass attic insulation

• Sealed windows and doors

• Use only cold water setting on washing machine

• We hunted down electrical vampires by unplugging gadgets when not in use

• We also use commercial car washes to cut down on water use, and we water the lawn less frequently

Cost savings result:
Average monthly utility bill before greening project: Electricity - $70, natural gas - $40, water/trash - $50
After greening project: Electricity - $25, natural gas - $15, water/trash - $30
Total annual utility savings = $1,080
Initial investment outlay = $2,500
Broke even in 2 years

Other green things that we do:

• We buy our consumables in bulk so less packaging

• We reuse plastic grocery bags as trash can liners (we recycle the excess)

• We recycle newspapers/magazines/junk mail, aluminum cans, plastic and glass bottles at a facility, thereby making some extra cash in the process

I encourage everyone to at least do something to help the environment. You'll save some money too.

What's In Your Wallet? (Update)

In this blog post that I wrote back in September 2006 I wrote what credit cards I had in my wallet at that time. The nature of credit card rewards is that the benefits don't last very long. Case in point: the two credit cards that I featured in the blog post are no longer in our wallets. Instead, this is what we carry now:

• Fidelity Investments 529 Mastercard - 2% cash back on all purchases, deposited directly into a designated Fidelity Investments 529 account.

• Chase Rewards Plus Visa - 5% cash back on gas, groceries, and pharmacies.

• Costco TrueEarnings American Express - 3% cash back on gas and dining out, 2% back on travel, and 1% back at Costco

• Citi Forward Visa - 5% cash back for dining out, entertainment, and most importantly bookstores (and Amazon.com - where any purchase is 5% back!)

• Starwood Preferred Guest American Express - 1 Starpoint for every purchase, double Starpoints for a stay at their hotel properties.

Five credit cards? Seems overkill, right? It's actually simple. For groceries, we use the Chase Visa. For gas, since Costco gas prices are usually 10 cents per gallon less than other stations, we use the Costco Amex. For dining out, movies, and Amazon.com, we use Citi Forward. For Costco purchases, we use the SPG Amex. It's the Swiss Army knife of travel cards. With it:

1. You can “top off” several different frequent flier accounts to get to that coveted reward ticket level.
2. You can convert just a few miles to keep your other miles from expiring.
3. You can get 1.25 miles per dollar spent, 25% more than most other airlines cards.
4. It’s a cheap way to get free nights at decent hotels.
5. You can redeem the starpoints for gift cards at a lot of popular merchants.

We also like to stay at Starwood properties (for our anniversary, we stayed at the US Grant in San Diego) and being a cardmember and an SPG member enabled us to be upgraded to a suite free of charge. To avoid unnecessary hits to our credit scores, I simply called Citibank to convert our old Dividend Platinum to the Forward and American Express to convert our old Delta SkyMiles to the SPG Amex.

Finally, for all other purchases that do not fall in the other categories, we use the 529 Mastercard. I've got it down pat, the problem is that Lediya still gets mixed up with her purchases. At least the worst she can do is get 2% cashback.

Note: Pay off balances in full every month otherwise the interest will wipe out any cashback you may earn.

28 Months Old

Lucas just turned 28 months old and it is just absolutely amazing what he is doing now! Here is a just a sample of what he does:

• He likes to put his blue hat on and pretend to be a mailman by delivering letters and boxes to us. He also knows how to say the word pretend and use it in a sentence.
• Favorite phrases: "No wanna do it!" "I do it!" "Go away daddy!" "Go outside with mommy" "Play with bubble gun outside" "How about..." "I want some nem nems! (M&Ms)"
• He also knows how to play hide and seek. Yesterday he said to me, "Daddy, go play hide and seek. You hide."
• He also tells me bedtime stories now. He would say "One upon a time, princess and horse..."
• And, he likes to get measured for his height. When we marvel how tall he is getting, he would run to the door where we mark his height and stand there to wait for us to measure him.
• He also loves going to school. In the mornings when he is ready he tells his mom "I ready mommy. I want to go to school." He knows the names of both of his teachers and all of his classmates.
• He is very imaginative. When I tell him a story that I made up, he listens intently and remembers it the next day.

He is eating much better now. He is still drinking his Pediasure with his milk, which helps to fill in holes in his diet. Also, just last night he started sleeping in his own room. We outfitted his bed with Cars sheets with Lightning McQueen (his favorite character right now). He sleeps around 8:00-8:30 at night after about a half hour of reading books and storytelling. He wakes up between 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning and takes his nap at noon until 1:30 - 2:00 pm. He loves to play with his water gun and his bubble gun, and enjoys running through the sprinklers in the backyard. He likes watching Caillou and his Mighty Machines on TV (he can't get enough of the firetruck episode). We've started to potty train him now so we will see how that goes. That's Lucas at 28 months old!

5 Year Wedding Anniversary

Lediya and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary last weekend. It's hard to believe that it has been five years already. As is customary with our anniversary, we went out of town. This time, without Lucas! He stayed home with Ma. Lediya and I went down to San Diego and stayed at The US Grant hotel in downtown. We arrived there on Saturday afternoon, and after checking in to our nice well-appointed room (see my Yelp review) we went across the street to Horton Plaza to watch Star Trek. Great movie, nonstop action. After the movie we walked a few blocks to have dinner at the marvelous Oceanaire Seafood Room (see my Yelp review). Fresh seafood and excellent service (they hooked us up with free dessert!).

The next day we drove up to the Carlsbad Premium Outlets where we browsed around the shops. We ended up buying a discounted Coach handbag for Lediya to replace her 5 year old handbag. We then drove back home, excited again to see Lucas. That was how we celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary!