[newdaynewuser]

I highly recommend manually tracking in spreadsheet in addition to whatever automated tool you use. You can start with a simple, date, merchant, thing, and amount columns.

I used to use a spreadsheet. Then came Mint, and I thought my days of manual work were over. But then I realized that now I was less careful with my money. I would check Mint daily, I would look at each transaction but by removing manual step of inputting amount spend, I sort of got immune to big or a lot of spendings.

Now in addition to Mint & Personal Capital, I also record each transaction almost daily. This way it is very hard to ignore multiple transactions in a row for dining out or buying junk etc.

Also if Mint goes away or they start charging you will still have your spreadsheet.