Retire Happy Blog

Today Wealth Web Gurus makes the transformation to Retire Happy Blog. Not only does it carry over Jim’s 11 years of articles, but going forward it will provide an improved reader experience and will focus on Jim’s passion… helping people retire happy.

Interview with Jim Yih

As I’ve been helping Jim out with some of the back end work for this launch, Jim stopped by a couple days ago to finalize a few details. While I had him over, I figured you might like to hear from him on why he made the change and what is still to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BVsajIpDXw

So check out Retire Happy Blog and leave a comment to let Jim know what you think. You might also want to visit the other sites Jim mentioned… Group Benefits Online and Advisor Think Box.

Related Posts:

• How Much Money Do I Need To Retire?
• How Much Do You Need To Retire? The 10% Rule
• How Much Do You Need To Retire? The 4% Rule

Do You Want To Retire Happy? originally appeared on Canadian Finance Blog on January 24, 2011.

Tom: For the Canadians that are hearing about Mint for the first time, can you tell them what you believe Mint is about and why they might want to sign up?

Aaron: Mint is a free, online personal finance service that aggregates all of your financial accounts, including savings, chequing, credit card, GIC, RRSP, TFSA, etc,  and helps you see where your money is going. Mint helps you keep track of your spending and reduce your debt by creating budgets you can stick with stick with. And Mint uncovers opportunities to save you money by looking at your individual spending and saving patterns and providing money-saving and money–making suggestions. For instance, if you’re carrying a big balance on a credit card, Mint will recommend a lower-interest card and tell you how much you’ll save on interest payments over the course of the year. Our bank and credit card recommendation data in Canada is provided by ratesupermarket.ca.

Tom: While I find it very convenient to have all my banking data in one place automatically, many people have valid concerns about privacy and security on the internet, especially when it comes to online banking. What measures does Mint take to protect user’s bank login and financial info?

Aaron: Mint uses bank-level security. If you’re comfortable with your banks’ online banking service – and Canada has the highest rates of online banking usage on the planet – you should be comfortable with Mint. Also, users are anonymous on Mint. We never ask for your name, SIN number or other personally identifiable information, and all data is encrypted.

As well, you can’t move money in or out of an account with Mint. It’s a read-only system. If I were to give you my access credentials (and I have done this as part of a demo in the past), you might see I have a chequing account and a credit card, but you can’t do anything with it.

In fact, Mint increases your security: Mint will send you an e-mail or alerts to your iPhone or Android phone to notify you of a large purchases or unusual charge. Maybe you did just buy a $4000 flat screen at Best Buy, but maybe it was someone else…

Tom: By far, the biggest question during the soft launch was the lack of CIBC and PC Financial access. These accounts were working for the first week and then were cut off. I’ve heard this was over CIBC’s concerns about client’s privacy. If this is true, what steps were taken to work things out in time for the official launch?

Aaron: As of December 1, we support more than 40 banks in Canada, including all the big ones. I can’t go into the specifics of our discussions any specific financial institution, but if you search for your favourite bank, it should be there and you’ll be able to add it to your Mint account.

Tom: Is work still being done to address accounts and credit cards that are not yet in Mint? Some examples are Scotia iTrade, Ally and BMO MasterCards if you don’t have regular bank account access.

Aaron: Yes. Mint supports more than 16,000 financial institutions in the US, but they weren’t all available on Day One.  Much like our launch in the US, we will continue to add Canadian institutions. If it’s not there today, users can request we add it from within their account.

Tom: In the US version of Mint, I believe it can automatically update your current house value. In Canada it’s a manual entry. Is this automatic version planned for Canada or is there no reliable data available to be pulled into Mint?

Aaron: In the US, Mint users who have added their home address see a Zillow home value estimate, and can accept the Zillow estimate or enter their own estimated home value. As of today, Canadian Mint users can enter their estimated home value. Again, as we did in the US, we’ve launched in Canada with a core set of features, and will add more. We’ll alert our users as we add more Canadian features in the coming months.

Tom: I noticed to be fully setup on the Canadian version of Mint, you need to choose Canada as your country when the account is created. For those who signed up when zip codes were the only option, should they close one account and open a new one? Or is there a way to have their account transferred over to Canadian?

Aaron: As of today there is no direct data port for Canadians using a US account. If you want access to Canadian-specific features and recommendations, your best bet is to set up a Canadian account.

Tom: Before Mint was sold to Intuit, you had mentioned being interested in Canada and the United Kingdom. Now that the Canadian launch has happened, is the U.K. next? What other countries are in your sights?

Aaron: Global has always been an objective of mine. Joining Intuit took us from a 30-person company in Mountain View to an organization with thousands of employees in countries around the world, which helped dramatically accelerated Mint’s globalization.  We’ll announce more countries in the near future.

Tom: Are there any plans to integrate Mint into other Intuit software like TurboTax and various Quicken products?

Aaron: I manage Intuit’s Personal Finance, which includes Quicken, and have already made significant improvements to the ease of use and categorization in Quicken. In fact, we launched our new Canadian versions of Quicken last week.

Mint helps users get organized to prepare for taxes. It’s very easy to tag and track tax related transactions in Mint. In terms of integration with Canadian tax products, stay tuned.

Tom: Thanks again Aaron for sharing your thoughts here on Canadian Finance Blog. I hope we can do this again sometime once the Canadian users have had some more time to really sink their teeth into all the tracking and budgeting available to them!

Aaron: Thanks for having me.

Hope you enjoyed my interview with Aaron Patzer. Why not give Mint a try and let us know what you think about it in the comments below?

Related Posts:

• Mint Officially Launching In Canada
• Mint.com Coming To Canada?
• Intuit Is Buying Mint.com

Mint.com In Canada – An Interview With Aaron Patzer originally appeared on Canadian Finance Blog on December 13, 2010.

I interviewed Flexo, the site’s creator, to learn about what he’s done previously and what’s in store for us with Money Quantum.

How long have you been blogging and what keeps you motivated to continue?

I’ve been writing on personal websites since 1995. In 2000, that came to be known as blogging through the help of the software Blogger. I started Consumerism Commentary in 2003 to help keep myself accountable for my financial decisions. I was towards the beginning of my journey towards financial independence at the time, and I had — and I still have — a lot to learn about finances and money. This is exactly what keeps me motivated to continue learning and writing on the website. I’m constantly learning something new, whether through research I do for posts or through comments and emails from Consumerism Commentary readers.

Tell us about Consumerism Commentary and what has led to its success.

Consumerism Commentary started out simply as a place for me to post my monthly financial reports and comment on the money-related current events. It was not created with the expectation that there would be an audience, and it was certainly not created with expectation of creating any income. I think the site remains successful because I have a unique style of writing and I am not afraid to let some of my personality to show through. At least, that’s what regular readers tell me. I also try hard not to pander or assume my audience is not intelligent. Much financial advice I see is written in a way that is overly simplified or assumes readers need to be coddled. Additionally, I try to present both sides of an argument rather than taking a combative or unnecessarily controversial point of view. It may not attract a lot of attention, but it is genuine.

Financial success is another matter. I was one of the first to write about personal finance on a blog, so I had a time advantage. I didn’t add any advertising until late 2004, and it took another 6 months for that to pay off. Actually, I prefer to frame it that it took 15 years before my internet activities produced any income. I was creating online communities as I was entering high school in 1990, and Consumerism Commentary was the first to make any money. So I’ve been at this for a while.

Any tips you learned along the way that could help other bloggers?

My favorite tip to help other bloggers is… to help other bloggers. I’ve made it a personal mission to help others build their websites with an eye towards their success. I also strongly believe that a blog is a part of a community; it’s best to acknowledge those who are in effect your colleagues rather than building your blog on a virtual island. And perhaps most importantly, don’t be afraid to find your own voice. It’s true that lots of blogs write about the same things, but there is always an opportunity for individuality — even as a member of a community. Oh, and don’t use your real name if you want to post your net worth or income each month and believe there is a possibility that a future employer might research your name and find your blog and your bank account balance.

You have been a major part of the personal finance blogosphere. Tell us about other sites you’ve launched.

I’ve launched quite a few websites. Some have succeeded, some have failed. The Carnival of Personal Finance — the first weekly “traveling” round-up for personal finance bloggers — is one of the successes. I launched a website called The Money BBS, which was a forum or bulletin board system, which soon after its launch was consolidated and rolled into the Money Blog Network Forums. I created pfblogs.org, which is a massive aggregator of over a thousand active personal finance blogs, and extended that to include the Friends of pfblogs.org, a way for serious personal finance bloggers to show that they stand out among the rest.

And now you have a new project launching as a beta version today, Money Quantum. Can you tell us what to expect from this site?

Money Quantum is a social networking website, created as a way for people whose life involves money to talk about important financial topics. My vision is for Money Quantum to be a hub for connecting experts with novices and everyone in between. There are many features, including forums, affinity groups, customizable profiles, personal blogs, and of course, live chat. This is for more than just bloggers, this is for everyone, with the goal being half social and half education. Learning from your peers is one of the most effective methods of acquiring knowledge, and Money Quantum will facilitate that in a way that is not possible with blogs alone.

Thank you Flexo for talking the time to talk with The Canadian Finance Blog. You’ve been a great help to many readers at Conumerism Commentary and I’m sure the social aspect of Money Quantum will open up many great discussions about personal finance! If you’d like to receive an invite to Money Quantum while in private beta, email beta@moneyquantum.com.

Related Posts:

• Buying a Used Car in a Private Sale – Protect Yourself
• UFile: Interview and Giveaway!
• Mint.com In Canada – An Interview With Aaron Patzer

Money Quantum Private Beta Begins Today: An Interview With Flexo, From Consumerism Commentary originally appeared on Canadian Finance Blog on August 11, 2009.