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Tired of having an over-stuffed wallet and paying too many credit card bills each month? Personal finance blog The Simple Dollar has a few suggestions on which cards to keep and which to start canceling over time. It's not as simple as cutting all of them up except one, as the post points out:Which is your oldest card? That card is the one that has the longest credit history, which is important for your credit report. For me, my oldest card is one that I got as a freshman in college. It has an atrocious "bonus" program associated to it (1/4% return in the form of "points"), but it was the first one I had and thus it's been on my credit report for more than a decade, establishing that I've had positive credit for a long while.Rather than keep the card in his wallet, however, the author simply locks it away in a safe, so the good credit hits keep coming every month. How did you decide which credit card gets the prime slot in your wallet? Share your wisdom in the comments. Photo by
When it comes to credit cards, getting a "reward" can actually be a setback if you don't get the right benefits or use them wisely. Over at the Dumb Little Man blog, J.W. Corbett from card comparison website Creditor Web offers some great advice on how to actually benefit from rewards-based cards. He kicks off his eight-point list with a doozie:About 95% of all rewards cards offer the exact same reward; 1% cash back. They each package it differently such as airline miles, points, cash, hotel discounts, etc., but the truth is a "point" or "mile" is generally worth 1 cent. In the end all the rewards still end up being the equivalent of about 1% cash.Corbett's other tips include reminders to pay off the card's balance every month and plan how to use the rewards money. How did you choose your rewards card? Leave your own suggestions in the comments.
After just four weeks of their public beta, financial management web site Mint is already boasting over 50,000 members and managing over $2 billion of their money, and early next week Mint is launching several new features intended to improve its already impressive all-in-one money management tool. There's no question that this snazzy web application deserves of much of its hype, but is it ready for your money?

A Word on Security

As soon as any web-based financial software like Mint is mentioned, the security watchdogs among us pounce on the comments to let the rest of us know that we should I'm not quite as cynical or concerned about my security with Mint, especially after having read Receive Low Balance, Due Bills, High Spending, and Other Alerts

Drill Into Your Spending Trends

Transactions Overview

Add New Accounts to Mint

Get an Overview of All Your Accounts at a Glance

Edit Your Accounts

Set a Budget for Any Spending Category

The Savings

Mint takes a look at your bills, spending, and credit cards, then suggests ways you can save money through different offers. In fact, Mint makes its money through these referrals. Some of them are sponsored deals through Mint partners and some are not, but Mint will always suggest the best offer first.

Likewise, Mint can save you money with the alerts described above. Receiving an SMS or email alerting you of a low balance or unusually high spending can provide you with a reality check before you go overboard and over budget.

The Drawbacks

Of course, Mint's not all daisies—at least not yet. You can't import data to Mint in any way other than through your financial institution, meaning that if you've got years' worth of financial data in Quicken, don't count on importing it to Mint. That said, Mint can load over a year of your most recent financial data (depending on how long your institution provides it) when you sign up.

On a similar note, Mint doesn't export data—meaning if you decided to ditch Mint for another money management solution, you're not going to get a CSV file or any other expor