Americans Losing Sleep over Money; Mint.com Helps Conquer Debt

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Expert Tips, Spending Data, Interactive Answers and Video Debut Today; Previewed and Consumer-Approved at Intuit Town Hall

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- One in three Americans loses sleep over money matters - more than those who reported similar worry over career or marriage combined.

Those were among the findings of a new survey released yesterday at the Intuit Town Hall* in New York City. The town hall is the latest in a series of discussions where Intuit brings customers together to listen to their concerns, understand their financial issues and offer helpful tips and advice about navigating the current economic environment. With debt management among participants' big worries, Mint.com (www.mint.com), a unit of Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU), has created a free resource center for people looking to tackle their own debt, available at: http://www.mint.com/solutions/debt/.

"For many people, long-term savings, investing and other financial goals seem impossible to achieve while they bear the burden of debt," said Aaron Patzer, general manager and vice president of Intuit Personal Finance and founder of Mint.com. "We've seen how this affects our users. So we extended our reach with a collection of helpful content, interactive questions and answers on our blog, and a unique video that illustrates the perils of debt - and some great ways to battle it."

Mint.com Users Get More Liquid - and Budgets Help

From February 2009 to February 2010, Mint.com users shrank average credit card debt by 14.3 percent, from $5,501 to $4,716. In the same timeframe, they increased cash savings by 3.2 percent. Combined, the average liquidity across the aggregate group grew 18.4 percent, year-over-year.

The difference was most dramatic among those working with the Mint.com budgeting tool. They saw their cash increase by 11.4 percent, while those who elected to not budget with Mint.com's tool have seen their cash decrease by 3.9 percent.

In spite of the progress, the problem is far from solved. Three of four Mint.com users identify paying off debt as a key financial goal, and 84.1 percent have revolving debt in the form of credit cards.

MintLife Provides Personalized Answers

MintLife, Mint.com's award-winning blog, provides timely educational content, and illustrative infographics for reduction debt. The site, at http://www.mint.com/blog/category/goals/getting-out-of-debt/, includes information about debt - offering an illustrated explanation of debt consolidation options and the opportunity to ask specific questions and get live answers.

Five Debt Reduction Tips

At the Intuit Town Hall, financial expert Beth Kobliner moderated a panel with Patzer and 20 consumers, and delivered her simple five-step plan for debt management, which appear on the Mint.com blog center. Her advice:

1. Never miss a payment.

2. Pay off higher rates before low ones.

3. Pay more than the minimum, and get a lower rate.

4. Pay off credit cards before student loans.

5. Get help - there's no need to go it alone, so take advantage of resources available

Mint.com will alert users to help them avoid missing payments, and the new debt-reduction effort will help in the fifth area, giving people the information necessary to assess and address their own debt situation.

The animated video illustrating the perils of debt can be viewed at URL. In the coming weeks, Mint.com will release a companion video showing how the story's star emerges debt-free from the adventure. **

* To obtain video footage from any of the Intuit Town Hall sessions, please use the following satellite coordinates: Waterfront/accent loop 1625.

About Mint.com

Mint.com is a leading online personal finance software service from Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU), providing over 2 million users a fresh, easy and intelligent way to manage their money. And it's free. Launched in September 2007, Mint.com has quickly grown to track nearly $200 billion in transactions and $50 billion in assets and has identified more than $300 million in potential savings for its users. Mint.com's innovation is in applying advanced technology to deliver breakthrough ease-of-use. Using patent-pending technology and proprietary algorithms, Mint.com allows users to see all their financial accounts in one place, makes it easy to set and keep to budgets, and helps identify money saving ideas. Mint.com is so effective that more than 90 percent of users say they have changed their financial habits as a result of using the service. For more information on Mint.com's free online personal finance service, please visit http://www.mint.com and follow Mint.com on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mint.

About Intuit Inc.

Intuit Inc. is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses; financial institutions, including banks and credit unions; consumers and accounting professionals. Its flagship products and services, including QuickBooks(R), Quicken(R) and TurboTax(R), simplify small business management and payroll processing, personal finance, and tax preparation and filing. ProSeries(R) and Lacerte(R) are Intuit's leading tax preparation offerings for professional accountants. The company's financial institutions division, anchored by Digital Insight, provides on-demand banking services to help banks and credit unions serve businesses and consumers with innovative solutions.

Founded in 1983, Intuit had annual revenue of $3.1 billion in its fiscal year 2009. The company has approximately 7,800 employees with major offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India and other locations. More information can be found at www.intuit.com <http://www.intuit.com/>. 


    Source: Intuit Inc.

Released April 29, 2010