Can we talk about Mint vs YNAB?

[jexy103]

I've been using mint since Sept 2011 and YNAB since Feb 2012. I continue to use both, but YNAB is my daily tool that I couldn't live without, while I check mint once every week or two just to go in and look at my investments section. That's really the only thing mint does for me that YNAB doesn't. Mint automatically uploads your investment information and shows you your current value in each account and the total. I like looking at the graph and seeing the upward trend. I've mimicked that in YNAB by tracking our TSP and IRA accounts as Off-Budget accounts and then going into Reports and looking at it there, but I only update those numbers monthly so it's not quite as much fun as mint (which is daily). However, I've also had multiple issues with mint not syncing correctly, and have recently run into a new one which affects my investments. :-/

I absolutely love YNAB and cannot say enough good things about it. I find it to be infinitely more flexible than mint, and not nearly as clunky. If you want to add money to a budget category, you click on the appropriate box, enter the number and you're done. In mint, you have to go to the budget tab, click on "details" of the category you want to edit, enter the number, click done, and wait for it to reload. Very annoying when you want to set up a new budget at the beginning of the month. Mint is good for hands-off tracking, but terrible as a budgeting software.

One thing I love about YNAB that I haven't read anyone yet mention is the Reports section. In here, you can look at your spending trends by category, by account (checking vs. cash), by month, etc. My favorite is the Net Worth page (of course). Once you have enough data, you can compare this May's spending to last May's spending, or this quarter's spending to last quarter's spending. I used to love mint's visual charts, but YNAB revamped their Reports section with YNAB4 that came out last summer and now it's very user-friendly and very flexible. I've also been extremely impressed with YNAB's customer service- they are stellar and outstanding and I can't say enough good things about them. They also solicit feedback for suggestions/improvements, and the owner, Jesse, periodically sends out updates and basic courses with a great writing style and sense of humor. I personally do forecast my budget since DH and I have extremely regular income. I've actually budgeted out through April 2014 since we have a project we want to complete, and I can gaze at our expected net worth six months from now. :-) I would definitely at least try YNAB. If it doesn't work for you, then fine, but I think you're missing out if you don't even try it.

[RedMaple]

I tried Mint and hated it.  I very much prefer hand entering every transaction.  How are you supposed to catch fraud when you allow the bank to enter stuff for you?  Also, it never tracked the net worth properly, and one of our retirement accounts would not automatically update.  Basically it had far too many glitches for my way of life.

Just started using YNAB at the beginning of the year, and after an adjustment period I'm a convert.  I enter my transactions, which I like.  It tracks everything in my budget, and also tells me how much is left in each category.  The reconciliation is great, as is the reporting tools.

I'm curious; how does this differ from using an excel sheet? You input all of your transactions manually and then allocate them towards your budget/reconcile with your banque statements.

[GoStumpy]

Try it yourself and see... free trial and all :)  It started as an excel spreadsheet 10 years ago, and evolved constantly since, it would take days for an experienced excel programmer to create something even remotely comparable to YNAB... for the $60 it costs, save the countless hours and just start using something nicely polished with Dropbox & Mobile Phone capabilities :)

[aj_yooper]

We started YNAB this month and really like it.  Initially, I downloaded the free copy and used it to set up a budget and collect data on our spending.  When I got the iPhone apps to work, my wife totally got into it; she is very good about receipts and loves data.  We don't spend that much, I thought.  The videos, free classes, and some of the blogs can be helpful in using YNAB as it is intended:  when money comes in, we have a short discussion, and give it a job.  Pay attention to the budget categories, not how much is in the checking account.  Build up a buffer so you place this month's income in next month's available income.  YNAB has pre-set budget categories, but it is simple to make your own.  It keeps track of your categories over the year.  We are interested in autopilot budgeting with accounts paid by checking or our points credit card.  We keep some cash and have set up cash accounts on YNAB to monitor that spending.  Way better for us than a spread sheet.  I enter our asset values monthly in off-budget accounts so we can see a monthly tally of net worth.  YNAB is worth the $54 we paid.  Even if my wife didn't buy into it, I would use it as it keeps track of everything you enter, encourages budget planning, and is sensible and very personal to our needs.  We don't use Mint because we are unwilling to share our passwords.

[Zaga]

I tried Mint and hated it.  I very much prefer hand entering every transaction.  How are you supposed to catch fraud when you allow the bank to enter stuff for you?  Also, it never tracked the net worth properly, and one of our retirement accounts would not automatically update.  Basically it had far too many glitches for my way of life.

Just started using YNAB at the beginning of the year, and after an adjustment period I'm a convert.  I enter my transactions, which I like.  It tracks everything in my budget, and also tells me how much is left in each category.  The reconciliation is great, as is the reporting tools.

I did use a spreadsheet for years with much success, but I've found that YNAB eliminates some steps and I like the format of the results better.  Just a personal preference, I say each person should do what works best for them.  I do still use my spreadsheet for some things like keeping track of my asset allocation and calculating how much needs to be contributed to retirement accounts.

I'm curious; how does this differ from using an excel sheet? You input all of your transactions manually and then allocate them towards your budget/reconcile with your banque statements.

[little stache]

Read the comments. Got to work. Newbee first impressions. Mint's easy transaction downloads was a great feature and it categorized spending pretty well. For those of us getting on the path to being frugal bad asses, getting a nice overview of how the money was being spent will help the family talk about the money trail and how we WANT the money to be spent. I pulled this together in about .5 on Mint and even had the better half come over and load in the passwords to her credit cards (the black box opens!). YNAB really can't do this so nicely and easily.

YNAB requires allot more effort at the start but I see how its "give your money jobs" can be the more effective planning tool. But to get a realistic starting budget, you have to have the where is the money going nailed down and Mint does a better job on that front.

[PapaJoe]

BTTT for a question.  I stumbled upon this forum when researching an iPhone 5 budgeting and expense tracking tool for my sister in law.  Her husband rececently passed away and handled all the finances.  She has a 5 yr old and gave birth to their twins 3 weeks early the day after his funeral.  Very stressful times for her.  I know... extremely tragic. 

Although I have many issues to solve for her, I'll keep this simple for now.  YNAB vs Mint.com or other budgeting tool....  I feel as though YNAB will yield more favorable results but given she will be going back to work in 1.5 months and has 3 kids I don't see her having time to enter every expense.  I feel like mint is a better option just to take the load off the manual entry.  She has little experience with financial IQ and tends to be a spender so lots of work to do.  This tool is the first step. 

Any thoughts on YNAB/Mint/other given her situation and lack of time, has to be easy?

[Joel]

BTTT for a question.  I stumbled upon this forum when researching an iPhone 5 budgeting and expense tracking tool for my sister in law.  Her husband rececently passed away and handled all the finances.  She has a 5 yr old and gave birth to their twins 3 weeks early the day after his funeral.  Very stressful times for her.  I know... extremely tragic. 

Although I have many issues to solve for her, I'll keep this simple for now.  YNAB vs Mint.com or other budgeting tool....  I feel as though YNAB will yield more favorable results but given she will be going back to work in 1.5 months and has 3 kids I don't see her having time to enter every expense.  I feel like mint is a better option just to take the load off the manual entry.  She has little experience with financial IQ and tends to be a spender so lots of work to do.  This tool is the first step. 

Any thoughts on YNAB/Mint/other given her situation and lack of time, has to be easy?

She needs to be committed if she is going to change or improve her finances.

That commitment is required in order to use YNAB and get any benefit out of it, since you must do manual data entry. It really only takes 5-10 seconds per transaction. Once you make a purchase at a location, it will remember the location, payee name, and category, only requiring you to update the amount. You can setup recurring transactions to automatically populate. It really does not take THAT much time.

If she is not going to be committed to getting her shit together, then she should use Mint. It will send her nagging emails that she has overspent her budget amount that she can ignore. It will let her set a budget with money she has yet to receive, hoping she actually receives what she expected. But it doesn't require the person to actually do anything about it.

Ultimately, it's up to her, and how committed she is.

[Micheal]

Right now we use a whiteboard and plan stuff a month ahead on it, then clean and repeat.  Don't use mint as my pre-paid walmart card is not supported an that is how we pay bills and order stuff online.  Everything else is in cash, but since i have a background in accounting and auditing it's easier for me to just ledger it out myself.  After debts are paid we may look into plunking down $60 for a program but until then my vote is for DIY efforts as they work best for me.

[travis_cooper]

I have read several places now that YNAB looks forward and Mint looks back.  I don't get what that means.  As far as I can tell both are just a means of inputting your budget and then tracking your money against those budgets.  Is there something I'm missing?

I personally use an Excel spreadsheet.  I did just recently create a Mint account just to check it out.  I like that I can quickly see what my budget looks like (or at least pretty close), before I sit down to update my actual budget.  Sometimes I'm not quick enough for my wife (I thought once every couple of weeks was good enough) and she keeps getting on me to update it so she knows how much we have left in various categories.  Now, with Mint, it automatically puts things in the right spots most of the time.  I can quickly adjust them if they are wrong.  My wife can now look at Mint and see sooner how much she has left for the month.  I don't see this advantage coming from YNAB.

I will agree with what several people have said, they do seem like different tools.  I guess that is what I am doing as well, I'm budgeting in Excel, and using Mint as a quick one stop shop to get a good idea of where we are at any given moment.

[Joel]

I have read several places now that YNAB looks forward and Mint looks back.  I don't get what that means.  As far as I can tell both are just a means of inputting your budget and then tracking your money against those budgets.  Is there something I'm missing?

I personally use an Excel spreadsheet.  I did just recently create a Mint account just to check it out.  I like that I can quickly see what my budget looks like (or at least pretty close), before I sit down to update my actual budget.  Sometimes I'm not quick enough for my wife (I thought once every couple of weeks was good enough) and she keeps getting on me to update it so she knows how much we have left in various categories.  Now, with Mint, it automatically puts things in the right spots most of the time.  I can quickly adjust them if they are wrong.  My wife can now look at Mint and see sooner how much she has left for the month.  I don't see this advantage coming from YNAB.

I will agree with what several people have said, they do seem like different tools.  I guess that is what I am doing as well, I'm budgeting in Excel, and using Mint as a quick one stop shop to get a good idea of where we are at any given moment.

Mint lets you make a budget based on income you *expect* to receive, and then tells you how you did based on that estimate. Backward looking, and not necessarily accurate.

YNAB has you make a budget based on money you have in the bank. You can only spend what you actually have. It has rules in place that force you to adjust your budget if you overspend, as that effects other categories. They also push living on a buffer where you don't touch your income until the next month, and use it to live off of in the next month. Forward looking.

[Will]

Sometimes I'm not quick enough for my wife (I thought once every couple of weeks was good enough) and she keeps getting on me to update it so she knows how much we have left in various categories.

What is she making the spending decisions based on?

[smalllife]

I like that I can quickly see what my budget looks like (or at least pretty close), before I sit down to update my actual budget.  Sometimes I'm not quick enough for my wife (I thought once every couple of weeks was good enough) and she keeps getting on me to update it so she knows how much we have left in various categories.  Now, with Mint, it automatically puts things in the right spots most of the time.  I can quickly adjust them if they are wrong.  My wife can now look at Mint and see sooner how much she has left for the month.  I don't see this advantage coming from YNAB.

If you enter in your spending with YNAB once a month, it will never be flexible and help with real-time decision making because the information you gave it is not up to date nor is the information you are using to make decisions.  Your wife sounds like she "gets" YNAB by asking for more up to date category balances, which is what drives decisions in YNAB as opposed to bank accounts.  YNAB is not a "reconcile at the end of the month" kind of a budget, but a dynamic spending plan that allows you to adjust your priorities mid-month while assuring that you still have enough cash to cover it.

Personal opinion: by asking your budgeting program to be completely automated, you have taken yourself out of the decision making process.  By doing so, you have eliminated the need to think about your spending and will have a harder time trying to change habits because they are more abstract and impersonal. 

People freak out when they hear that there is no automatic upload, but that's a good part of why YNAB works so well.  If you want, PocketSense will help you import your bank statements (once a week at a minimum would be my recommendation).  However, the app is super easy to use and even manually inputting hardly takes any time at all.  It's like cleaning the house - a little upkeep throughout the week makes the large cleaning job easier as well.

[CanuckExpat]

We use Mint, it works fine for us; We have a high savings rate, and probably would whether or not we used Mint. More then anything, Mint is a nice tool to check after the fact (or during the month) to quickly see where we spent money in broad categories.

Since YNAB seems to come so enthiastically, I would like to try it out, see if it helps any, or if it would help us save even more. Here are a few questions:

From what I"ve heard/read, it seems like YNAB implements zero-based budgetting, and an electronic "envelope system" but with a nice interface. I think how we use Mint is already close to this idea (as long as we meet each of our budget categories and don't go into "red"). Given that, Are there equally good alternatives to YNAB that come at a lower cost, or are free?

If there aren't good alternatives, how does the free trial work with their sporadic sales? I'd rather pay $20 for the software, so  could I try the 31 day trial, and if I like it buy it when it is on sale?

You don't achieve a high savings rate by spending $60 on software you might not need :)

[smalllife]

@CanuckExpat - I just sent you a PM

[MustacheMatt]

I tried Mint and at first REALLY liked it.  Everything was imported flawlessly, nice graphics, etc.

Then I started getting it's notifications. 

You're net worth is "xxx."  You should....

I didn't like the idea that it was constantly telling me what to do, which I guess the sheeple may appreciate however I do not.

The last straw was, "You haven't spent enough money in the restaurant category."

Excuse me?  The last thing I need is some glitzy bullshit telling me what to do with my money, especially in a nonessential category.  Fuck that, deleted.

Sorry, no experience with YNAB yet!

[Insanity]

I tried Mint and at first REALLY liked it.  Everything was imported flawlessly, nice graphics, etc.

Then I started getting it's notifications. 

You're net worth is "xxx."  You should....

I didn't like the idea that it was constantly telling me what to do, which I guess the sheeple may appreciate however I do not.

The last straw was, "You haven't spent enough money in the restaurant category."

Excuse me?  The last thing I need is some glitzy bullshit telling me what to do with my money, especially in a nonessential category.  Fuck that, deleted.

Sorry, no experience with YNAB yet!

Mint is a free service.  You are not the customer, the paying advertisers are.

Just ignore those tips.

[SunshineGirl]

BTTT for a question.  I stumbled upon this forum when researching an iPhone 5 budgeting and expense tracking tool for my sister in law.  Her husband rececently passed away and handled all the finances.  She has a 5 yr old and gave birth to their twins 3 weeks early the day after his funeral.  Very stressful times for her.  I know... extremely tragic. 

Although I have many issues to solve for her, I'll keep this simple for now.  YNAB vs Mint.com or other budgeting tool....  I feel as though YNAB will yield more favorable results but given she will be going back to work in 1.5 months and has 3 kids I don't see her having time to enter every expense.  I feel like mint is a better option just to take the load off the manual entry.  She has little experience with financial IQ and tends to be a spender so lots of work to do.  This tool is the first step. 

Any thoughts on YNAB/Mint/other given her situation and lack of time, has to be easy?

I would just say that for someone who tends to be a spender, YNAB could be a financial lifesaver. Once you get the program set up and figure out how to use it, which took me a little time, I admit, it's great. Entering your expenses takes no time at all - it's usually a few receipts per day, or you can do it on your smartphone at the time of purchase. The priceless aspect for me is having to decide what "job" every dollar has, and then to either spend within that amount or reallocate the funds. Since there's a free month's trial, why not have her get it and help her figure it out? 

[fb132]

I prefer YNAB, something about giving my bank info does not sit well with me. With YNAB, I enjoy entering every transaction...plus I noticed my savings % has gone way up since using it.

[rocketpj]

We are using YNAB.  I was always the one with the 'budget in his head' and it could be a source of friction for us.  Wifey would ask if we had enough for x, I'd say 'not right now' - then I'm the one who is denying our children their new clothes or whatever.  Whenever we talked about it or planned the budget we always agreed, but in the moment it made me the bad guy.

With the YNAB smartphone thingy I am out of the loop when she wants to buy something.  Just check the budget on your phone and make the decision.  We work out the budget together.  Takes the fight right out of things - not that we ever fought much, but removing that source of friction was worth the price all on its own.

[cripes7]

PapaJoe: Your sister in law may find that YNAB is actually easier to use. I enter transactions at the gas pump, grocery store, etc. on my phone. It takes very little time, 30 seconds or so, and she can look at the available balance in each category before going in to a store. If you see you have $100, you won't spend $150. If you can learn the program and help her set it up, it may be great for her. Enter her category amounts once a month, then nothing but entries for the rest of the month. She can reconfigure if she's over or under spending in a category as she learns what she really needs. Reconcile at the end of the month, and she's ready to go for the following month.

It works great for us, my husband travels for work and he doesn't have to ask me how much is in the accounts, it syncs between our PC, his Apple phone, and my Android. A very good tool. 

[use2betrix]

I just started using Mint and it works fine for me. Syncs good with all my savings, checking, investments, and loans.

I haven't really figuring out the budgeting portions but that's not my concerned. I have an x number of spending each month, y number of income, and my only concern each month is what the difference comes out to be.

[Sibley]

I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.

[rocketpj]

I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.

I've never had a good experience with Quicken myself.  Too fiddly, and it miscategorizes everything forcing me to spend half a day fixing it.

[Sibley]

I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.

I've never had a good experience with Quicken myself.  Too fiddly, and it miscategorizes everything forcing me to spend half a day fixing it.

How is that worse than entering every transaction? To each their own.

[Will]

I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.

That part I made bold is what pisses me off.  Intuit/Quicken designs that into it; YNAB will always work.  And it seems silly to me to talk about Quicken for budgeting because while it supposedly has "budgeting features," not many have "figured it out."  Because Quicken is NOT for budgeting anymore than a Hummer is designed for going to the grocery store.

[Sibley]

I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.

That part I made bold is what pisses me off.  Intuit/Quicken designs that into it; YNAB will always work.  And it seems silly to me to talk about Quicken for budgeting because while it supposedly has "budgeting features," not many have "figured it out."  Because Quicken is NOT for budgeting anymore than a Hummer is designed for going to the grocery store.

Very correct! It's planned obsolescence does piss me off, however I also appreciate the fact that they don't change the layout on me whenever they feel like it. (Think Facebook.) It works for me though.

[Genevieve]

I love using Mint. I like that I can be lazy by not putting in transactions and still know exactly what I'm spending. YNAB has automatic syncing, but I never managed to figure out how to do it in a satisfactory manner before I got annoyed and my 30 day trial ran out.

I don't use the budgeting feature for Mint. It's too clunky. Instead, I estimate my expenses in a separate spreadsheet that I can move around to my heart's content.

YNAB does help you live on last month's income, but we have our checking accounts set up in a particular way to make sure we meet our saving and spending goals.

We have two checking accounts: Fixed Expenses and Variable Expenses. Each paycheck gets split according to the budget. We have an idea of our weekly spend rate, so we just use that as a judge for how we're doing throughout the month. We take care of big, lumpy expenses separately.

At the same time, we send off money into Save-to-Spend and Savings/Investments accounts. We do our best to minimize expenses throughout the month, and leftover money from the Fixed Account goes towards Savings/Investments, and leftover money from the Variable Account goes to Save-to-Spend to be used for buying bigger purchases like a deep freezer.

Now that this system is set up, we only have to move money once it piles up in a particular account.

It works for my husband and me.

[NorCal]

I had some major problems with Mint about 4 years back.  My bank did some type of systems changover that Mint didn't like.  My accounts stopped syncing.

After a few months of customer support back-and-forth, they finally fixed it.  But the only way to fix it was to delete my bank information and start over.  This caused me to lose all of my history with that bank, and screwed up all of my historical reporting. 

Never again.

I switched to Quicken, and have been very happy with it.  It's worth the money and the 3-4 year upgrade requirement IMO.  Syncing just works, your history isn't at risk, and you get tons of detail.  I personally like their "Current Spend vs. Avg Spend" reporting instead of budgeting feature.

[Merrie]

The priceless aspect for me is having to decide what "job" every dollar has, and then to either spend within that amount or reallocate the funds.

I put together my own Excel spreadsheet to allocate my money to categories because the ideas of "give each dollar a job" and "save for a rainy day" resonated with me but I don't want to give 60 of them the job of buying this software if I could write a spreadsheet that would suit us. I get that YNAB has much more functionality than a spreadsheet, but why pay for functionality I don't need? What I am doing now is working so far. I keep refining it. Maybe some day I'll try a trial of YNAB but for now I'm pleased with my solution.

That said, we have been using it somewhat more for tracking and somewhat less for limit setting, but after 7 months of doing this and watching our July budget get derailed by a (very useful, admittedly) $200 birthday present we bought on a semi-whim, my husband is finally starting to buy into the idea of seeing how much we have in a category BEFORE he goes shopping. We currently have $228 for home maintenance for August and he needs to decide what is a priority and what can wait because we can't buy everything he wants (not needs) to get.

[MDM]

I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.

That part I made bold is what pisses me off.  Intuit/Quicken designs that into it; YNAB will always work.  And it seems silly to me to talk about Quicken for budgeting because while it supposedly has "budgeting features," not many have "figured it out."  Because Quicken is NOT for budgeting anymore than a Hummer is designed for going to the grocery store.

Very correct! It's planned obsolescence does piss me off, however I also appreciate the fact that they don't change the layout on me whenever they feel like it. (Think Facebook.) It works for me though.

If there were a Quicken competitor with as much functionality and lower price (and no planned obsolescence) we'd take it in a heartbeat.  Meanwhile the planned obsolescence cost, while annoying, is less than what my time is worth to maintain something similar.  YMMV.  And yes, budgeting in Quicken is best done in Excel. ;)

Quicken's Lifetime Planner isn't mentioned much (and could be better), but given that all one's information is already in place it does a nice job showing likely future asset levels and facilitating "what if?" analysis.

[AnAmericanAbroad]

Echoing the above on Mint, we live well below our means, and in fact intentionally float our spending. You mean I can get an interest free loan from the credit card for up to ~55 days, and get paid 1.65% cash back? And invest in the meantime (or cash flow the bill when it comes, or use the emergency fund, it's all perspective)? Excellent. So Mint works well for us, and it's free.

Mint has some quirks though: some transactions don't pull in properly, the site is slow and a bit buggy, the dashboard doesn't display things quite the way I want. But it's free, and YNAB is not. So I pull data from Mint monthly to parse into spreadsheets the way I want them. I've considered using a paid-for service but can't justify the expense when I can make everything else work for me well enough for free.