Alas, I was one of those procrastinators this year. Usually a diligent tax filer, I was bit delayed in my filings this year. Not to worry, though, as I planned to kick the proverbial can down the road by filing my first ever tax extension. At the conclusion of this form, I was asked to provide my 2014 anticipated tax liability. Now, I ran a few calculations from various tax estimation resources in the previous weeks leading up to April 15th, all which came back with the same conclusion. As anticipated, I would owe the government a small amount in taxes. Nothing too shocking. To ensure I entered the correct information on the tax form strictly out of fear of perjury, I ran my information through the program's tax estimator one final time.

In the Words of Rick Perry, "Oops"

"Impossible," I said to myself. The number displayed on screen had to be a product of my imagination.

I quickly ran some additional calculations, yet each time the same amount of taxes owed was calculated. That small tax liability I had in mind quickly ballooned by several thousand percent. It was like Enron had estimated my taxes.

While I am certainly no tax expert or CPA, I knew of a few legal options to reduce or even eliminate nearly all of my tax owed to the federal government. Sorry Washington, but like any sane taxpayer, I'll pass on paying higher taxes. The option I chose to explore was maxing out my retirement contributions, specifically through a new IRA account. My initial reaction was to research the various IRA options my primary financial institution had to offer. And it was a no-brainer, as I already have several products with them, not to mention that I have been a customer for nearly 25 years.

Nearly a quarter of a century. Within several minutes, I quickly found that my options were thin. Not only was the information confusing and not helpful, none of the options would provide a quick turn around time to max my contributions. I could either:

• request a consultation, or
• call their 800 number.

"Where was the 'Open Now?' button on their website?" I wondered, a typical response for an inpatient millennial. You can apply for any loan through this financial institution's website or open any deposit account. Opening, though, a retirement account requires that I actually talk to a human, not to mention the investment of what I would expect to be a considerable amount of time on this endeavour? Annoyed and frustrated, I continued my search.

Enter Mint.

The Central Hub of My Finances

I am a daily Mint user.

Over the past five years, Mint has served as my central hub for my finances. While there was initial skepticism of aggregating my various accounts, I quickly warmed up to the idea after realizing its potential. No longer would I need to consistently review each of my numerous bank and credit union accounts for transaction history. And keeping an Excel-based budget became a distant memory.

If you aren't too familiar with Mint, one of the methods in which they provide additional value for their users, not to mention their partners, is their ability to display relevant offers based on a user's previous transactions. In other words, Mint advertises relevant financial products to its users based on past purchase history. Occasionally, Mint uses prime real estate just below the top navigation bar to display these offers.

In fact, it was here that I learned I could open an IRA account through one of Mint's partners.

Read Jonathan Lay's complete CUGrow.com article to learn more credit union takeaways from the Mint.com experience.