Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Mint.com, the free online personal financial manager, is releasing a new feature today called Financial Fitness.  Mint designed the new feature as a way to help users actively improve their financial well-being.  I have been using Mint.com for a few months now, so I was eager to play with the new feature.

How it works

Mint defines Financial Fitness by five key points:  1) Know your Money, 2) Spend Less than you Earn, 3) Use Debt Wisely, 4) Invest Your Savings, and 5) Prepare for the Unexpected.  Within each key point are actionable tasks that anyone can take to improve their financial health.  Each task has point values, for example, you get 250 points for avoiding bank fees for one month.  Your goal is to earn enough points to be 100% financial fit (at least according to Mint.com).

Making finances fun

Mint believes that taking care of your finances doesn’t have to be tedious or boring, but can be fun.  In addition to earning points for your tasks, you can unlock achievements by, for example, going so many months without finance charges.  The achievements are similar to those in video games or for the non-video gamers, that gold-star or smiley face sticker in grade school.  Your achievements are embeddable so you can boast of your Mint financial prowess to the rest of the online world.  You will also be able to see where you rank in fitness amongst other Mint users.  How long before something like this gets integrated into Facebook?

Want to try it out?

Right now, Mint’s Financial Fitness is being rolled out on a limited beta release.  But, thanks to our friends at Mint.com, 100 of you lucky Gadgetell readers will be given access to the beta trial.  According to Mint, ” [you] will be part of the feedback loop Mint will rely on to refine the product before its public launch early this summer.”  Here is how to participate:

1) Have or set up a Mint.com account

2) E-mail gadgetell-getfit@mint.com with the email address used to log into your mint.com account

It may take 2-3 days for Mint to organize your responses and select the 100 readers for the beta, so please be patient.

Site [Mint.com]