I tend to find myself on the ‘alternative’ side of things. 

I prefer to read Science Fiction and Fantasy, with a little children’s literature and formulaic romance novel thrown in.  (David Eddings, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways…)

I love almost all kinds of music and, concurrently, love to dance  to all kinds of music.  I understand that not everyone even knows about VNV Nation, but there is always someone equally talented out there to talk about a la’ Johnny Lang or Fort Minor.  And I admit to totally loving Miley Cyrus’s “See You Again” about as much as Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma”.

I equally love Star Trek: The Next Generation and America’s Next Top Model.  While Jean Luc Piccard taught me about leadership, Tyra taught me about ‘neck’.

I also love food.  All kinds of food.  I don’t discriminate.  Really. 

I am really more ‘all-ternative’ than anything.  So why am I telling you all of this?  Because, in spite of my rampant inclusivity, sometimes I just don’t feel like it.  Something gets to be uber popular…and I just don’t care.   

But then I go from ‘not caring’ to ‘kind of annoyed’.  I love you Steve Jobs, but your minions can be a little annoying. 

I then move from ‘kind of annoyed’ to ‘backlash’.  If I see one more useless iPhone app or list on how to make one’s iPhone the digital equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife I just might scream.  I don’t want  to manage 500 things on that little screen! 

I’ve officially moved from ‘backlash’ to ‘crotchety old man’.  In my day they used paper.  Paper!  I don’t care if paper calendars are now considered to be obsolete; there is something refreshingly solid about writing something down on a virgin slip of paper with an elegantly proportioned .7mm pen in blue.  I’m just saying.

One of things that has been bobbing on the waves of internet surfing, is a financial management program for fiscal responsibility called ”Mint”.  AKA “the best free way to manage your money”. 

I’ve basically given up on trying to use one of these online money management programs no matter how ‘best’ or ‘free’ or ‘awesome’ they may be. 

I tried Wesabe and  Rudder, upon the ADD advice of the moment from people in the blogosphere.  They were nice enough except I could never get the programs to upload all of my financial information.  I had to ghetto the system (manually enter information which is then implemented but not ‘tracked’ in my asset allocation) to even get anything to work.  With Wesabe, I had to upload all my Bank of American information manually.  [Shudder] 

I have to be honest.  I, and my generation, are not interested in an application if it takes longer than 5 minutes to set up.  We just won’t use it.

So today, after deciding that Rudder wasn’t working for me either, I caved and decided to try Mint.  Not only is it ridiculously easy on the eyes, it actually managed to upload all of my information.  Every account.  I was beginning to think the idea of comprehensive online financial management a myth.

Am I on the Mint bandwagon of cheerleaders?  Not yet.  I need to see how interactive it is over a longer period of time.  However, I am kicking myself for not trying it earlier. 

Sometimes people aren’t lemmings.  Sometimes something is popular because it is just a really good idea.  I’m not caving on the iPhone thing though.  Steve Jobs will just have to pry my money from my cold, dead hands another way.

If you happen to be feeling like joining me in my all-ternative movement, stepping out of the box a little, I invite you to watch this and let a little hip-hop surprise you.