Author Topic: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB  (Read 2788 times)

NewDay1

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Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« on: December 14, 2018, 07:01:30 PM »
Hi all - does anyone have experience with either of the following?  And, if so, preference?  Pros/cons?

Mint https://www.mint.com/ (free)

YNAB https://www.youneedabudget.com/ (annual fee)

Thanks!

nereo

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Re: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2018, 07:31:14 PM »
Well you’ve already pointed out the obvious (YNAB has an annual - and substantial - fee). Personally Mint has done everything I’ve needed it to, syncing to accounts, categorizing spending and exporting as CSV (plus its integration with quicken is pretty good). 

But find what works for you.  IIRC, YNAB has a free 30 day test period.  Use both and see if the premium is worth it to you.  Software is only ‘good’ if you use it.

Frankies Girl

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Re: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2018, 08:07:22 PM »
I like Mint even with it being a bit finicky. Free and a bit fussy is okay by me and now that I know how to deal, it's not a real issue at all anyway.

soccerluvof4

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Re: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2018, 10:08:33 AM »
I'm with Frankie's Girl on this one , I like Mint. Easy to make any category you want, free and they have occasional good reads or ideas plus a free monthly credit report. Been using for 6+ years maybe and see no reason to change. Phone app works great too.

Kronsey

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Re: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2018, 11:38:57 AM »
Hi all - does anyone have experience with either of the following?  And, if so, preference?  Pros/cons?

Mint https://www.mint.com/ (free)

YNAB https://www.youneedabudget.com/ (annual fee)

Thanks!

Tried YNAB (actually got retargeted with an ad for 60 days free instead of 30). There is nothing wrong with the software, I just didn't find it worth the fee. We are moving all of our budgeting to the cash envelope system except for the auto pay expenses. Just not convinced any sort of budgeting software is necessary with that change.

Mint is ok. Has some buggy issues.

Personal Capital can kinda work the same way. Though if you sign up for the free software and have decent savings, they will bombard you with sales calls trying to get you to move your money to their asset management platform. No thanks...

I think the place to start for someone considering any of these options is what are you wanting the software to do for you?

tralfamadorian

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Re: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2018, 12:11:58 PM »
Agree with everyone else. Mint/Personal Capital are both less than perfect but free while YNAB is, I believe, around ~$7/mo and offers a lot more features.

If you have a lot of fat to trim from your budget and are not finding the simple tracking of Mint/PC to be sufficient, than YNAB may be what you need at least for a little while to get started down the right path.

Zikoris

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Re: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2018, 03:38:31 PM »
I've used Mint for many years and will continue to as long as it's workable, but the real flaw with it is that companies can choose to cut off access to it at any time. I just recently ran into that a few weeks ago, with my main credit card cutting off access, and it was a huge pain - I had to get a new card quickly, switch over all our auto payments, add manual transactions for a bunch of stuff to Mint, and basically do a fair bit of messing around to fix it, because I didn't realize at first that it was permanent - I assumed it was just a temporary issue due to their new website. It certainly pissed me off, anyway. Now everything's operational again with the new card, but it was an annoying few weeks.

I haven't used YNAB because 1. I don't want to pay and 2. It goes against my philosophy of doing as little work as possible for financial things.

sparkytheop

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Re: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2018, 03:49:19 PM »
Pre-subscription, I would have highly recommended YNAB (I bought the old version years ago when it was on sale, before they went to subscription based).  I am completely against having to have a subscription, especially when it is supposed to be a tool to help save and optimize your money.

I did look at Mint at one point, but did not like it as much as I like YNAB.  However, if my YNAB permanently dies, I'd go to Mint and try that again over doing a subscription.

oldtoyota

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Re: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« Reply #8 on: December 15, 2018, 04:49:08 PM »
Pre-subscription, I would have highly recommended YNAB (I bought the old version years ago when it was on sale, before they went to subscription based).  I am completely against having to have a subscription, especially when it is supposed to be a tool to help save and optimize your money.

I did look at Mint at one point, but did not like it as much as I like YNAB.  However, if my YNAB permanently dies, I'd go to Mint and try that again over doing a subscription.

This.

I would have recommend it pre-subscription. I just can't get myself to pay for a subscription. I bought the software. When they moved to subscription, it left those of us who paid before out in the cold.

Indexer

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Re: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« Reply #9 on: December 15, 2018, 10:35:42 PM »
I've had mint for going on 8 years. Once you get it going the way you want it's less buggy. By that I mean you may have to manually categorize some items here and there, but when you correct it the software learns so you only have to tell it once. After using it for this long it's very rare I need to correct it.

The investment tools are a complete waste. Don't try to use it for that. Vanguard's online tools or Personal Capital are better routes for that.

Personal Capital...  Dan keeps calling me and sending me emails wanting to schedule an appointment. I'm seriously considering shutting it down. I very rarely use PC's tools anymore. My portfolio is all index funds and set up in a tax efficient manner. Vanguard's tools are more than enough for handling that.... Yeah, I need to delete PC and get Dan off my back.

NewDay1

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Re: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« Reply #10 on: December 26, 2018, 12:04:19 PM »
Thanks everyone for the responses.  I'll go with Mint, anticipating buggy-ness and some manual stuff, just been using a regular spreadsheet for years and was looking for something more automated to track spending.  The main area I need "budget" help with is food, but that's more about better planning on my part. :-)

nereo

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Re: Money tracking: Mint or YNAB
« Reply #11 on: December 26, 2018, 12:22:49 PM »
Thanks everyone for the responses.  I'll go with Mint, anticipating buggy-ness and some manual stuff, just been using a regular spreadsheet for years and was looking for something more automated to track spending.  The main area I need "budget" help with is food, but that's more about better planning on my part. :-)

If you've been spreadsheet tracking for years Mint will be a welcome improvement.  Most of it's 'buggy-ness' is simply times when you have to manually categorize or update passwords for the auto-track features.  Which you're already doing everytime you manually put stuff in spreadsheets.

Neither Mint nor YNAB will improve your food budget; both will categorize trips to a grocery store as "groceries" and allow you to set target spending goals, but neither can get any more granular than that (i.e. they can't automatically break down your grocery bill into various food categories - you still need to enter that all in yourself.  Likewise, if you buy detergent or trash bags at the grocery store each will still categorize it as 'groceries/food' unless you manually subtract that out).


 

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