With the Christmas season gear, I wanted to remind everyone about the importance of budgeting, especially when it comes to personal finance.

I began an aggressively budget plan about five years ago, mainly to pay off certain debts earlier than necessary (I like a challenge). So, I started where mot young people would–reading Suzy Orman and Robert Kiyosaki books. I also began to scout the Internet for good budgeting spreadsheet and software to see what I could add to my own premade version that might be of help to my specific situation. Then I stumbled upon a goldmine: Mint.com!

Mint.com fir right into my life and was better than any premade budget or personalized budgeting software I had come across. Perhaps because it is so technology oriented, but Mint.com makes the process easy and is highly customized to the users experience and needs. When I began, I needed tried simple things with Mint.com to see how it was and what it could handle. As time went on, and as they added more featured, I grew with Mint.com as well and began adding more of what I wanted to track into their system/service.

Part of what makes Mint.com so great is the flexibility. As a person who enjoys traveling and, I really liked that fact that I could take Mint.com with me. Since it’s Internet based, I can get my information from anywhere. Over time, Mint.com has removed some features (like their monthly track-it where you could see hoe “Mint Savvy” you were) and replaced them with better tools like customized goals with breakdowns for how much you should be saving toward that goal and the ability to easily change the timeframe, if needed.

Overall, even though it went from independent hands to professional ones, Mint.com is still a great tool. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for decent, personal financial tools.