My bank was sold today

Just as I've been fearing, my bank, Wachovia, was sold to Citigroup today. Now, I love Wachovia, but I had a credit card with Citi before and they gave me some trouble, so I'm a little nervous about how much things are going to change at Wachovia now.

What about you, Washington Mutual customers, or anyone whose bank has recently been sold, have you had anything weird happen to your accounts after your bank was bought?

Be on the lookout!

When you're shopping for groceries, especially name brand products, make sure that the items haven't shrunk. That's right, shrunk. To deal with the struggling economy, many products are being downsized without warning, but the price is still the same. If you buy a product regularly, keep an eye on the size before you buy.

Keep track of your finances

When my wife and I first got married, it was hard for us to keep track of our spending. Neither one of us had lived by a budget before, and neither one of us really kept track of our spending, except to make sure that we didn't overdraft our bank accounts. Since then, we've learned how to make a budget, plus track our expenses to make sure that we're following that budget. Before we did, though, we found a great website that helped us keep track of where our money was going.

The site is mint.com, and it's absolutely free (I don't like to pay money to manage my money, unless I have to). On this site, you can see each transaction and place it into different categories, and then see how much you are spending in each category. It also has different charts and graphs to illustrate everything a little clearer. The best part is, if you have online banking, you can tell mint your username and password, and it will automatically track your transactions for you, provided you use your debit card or credit card (There's no way to manually add transactions at the moment). You can also set up a budget and mint will automatically keep track of how you're doing. A recently added feature is keeping track of investments. I use mint to keep track of my 401k.

Mint is not perfect, however. Sometimes transactions won't be listed from the right place; I buy gas at Sunoco, and it shows up as Sojo. Also, sometimes it has trouble connecting with your bank and updating your information and transactions. The best and most accurate way to keep track of your finances is by doing it yourself, but if you're not ready to do that or you don't know how, mint might be a good stepping stone for you.

An Introduction

This is my first blog, ironically it will probably be my last blog. I thought this would be a good way to share some of my ideas about finances and glee about tech related things (plus, hopefully make some money). Before I go any further, I must admit that I'm an apple fan. I wouldn't go as far as to call myself a fanboy, but I definitely am a fan. I never took a sacred vow to only use mac stuff, it's just my preference.

I am also newly married, and one thing my new bride and I are learning is finances. We've read a few books, and taken Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University Course (which I highly recommend), and we're starting to use a budget (also highly recommended), and are trying to get out of debt. I would love to share our experiences with my readers, and also gather other ideas from readers.

So that's about it. Hopefully this thing will go pretty well.

Thanks!