What should I use: Mint, YNAB, Personal Capital, ?

[HalfDollar]

I think I want an accounting system with little manual work. (I'm ok with having to enter a few 2FA codes.)

Mint can show cc transactions. Can the others?

Are there any privacy issues with these sites?

What factors do you think are the biggest reasons to go with one over the other?

[MDM]

What factors do you think are the biggest reasons to go with one over the other?

It's often a matter of personal taste and familiarity.

To borrow a phrase, it has been said that Quicken is the worst such software except for all those others, so...?

[Askel]

Mint is good for tracking spending and that's about it.   

It's pretty garbage for financial planning. i.e. accounting for mortgage payments and breaking out escrow, PMI, and interest like I could in Quicken is a nightmare in Mint. 

Mint is also having a little trouble with companies that have added two factor authentication to their sites as well.   

I tried Personal Capital and it seemed much better, but deleted it instantly after some "investment advisor" of theirs started cold calling me.   

I've gone back to tracking things on my own in spreadsheets.   

[Uturn]

It depends on what you need it to do. I use PC because it does a good job at categorizing my CC expenses.  I don't budget and am more concerned about what I spent vs what I am going to spend in each category.  Yes, their advisors are going to try to schedule a meeting a couple of times per year, but I don't feel that they unrealistically hound me about it.   

[goodmoneygoodlife]

I like using Mint because its UI is best for me (I just want to look at my NW and don't really micromanage my spending--just knowing the overarching trends is enough). It also has better and more stable connections to my banks than Personal Capital in my experience.

I haven't tried YNAB since I've heard it isn't free.

[Malossi792]

Excel.
Just like with calories, money in, money out, done.
I don't believe in micro managing if the big picture is working correctly.

[Coleman50000]

I've used them all, and I fell in love with YNAB.  I wholeheartedly recommend you try it out.

It has a really slick app that does pull in transactions automatically, and there is a lot of automation to help make certain parts easier.  But the real value comes from the idea of giving every dollar a job.  When you make money, you assign those dollars to the categories, which is a good way to express & refine your values & relationship with money as you evolve.  5 times more useful if you share finances with someone because it provides a good forum to discuss priorities around where money is spent.  If that sounds interesting, then go for it.  However, if you're just looking to track spending then just use Mint.

You get what you pay for!  Hope this helps.

[midweststache]

I've used them all, and I fell in love with YNAB.  I wholeheartedly recommend you try it out.

It has a really slick app that does pull in transactions automatically, and there is a lot of automation to help make certain parts easier.  But the real value comes from the idea of giving every dollar a job.  When you make money, you assign those dollars to the categories, which is a good way to express & refine your values & relationship with money as you evolve.  5 times more useful if you share finances with someone because it provides a good forum to discuss priorities around where money is spent.  If that sounds interesting, then go for it.  However, if you're just looking to track spending then just use Mint.

You get what you pay for!  Hope this helps.

Another fan of YNAB. I've been using it since it was a desktop application - I have feelings about this new annual subscription model - but I also really appreciate the automated functionality of it. I don't actually link my accounts to credit cards, bank accounts, etc. (though it has that functionality), not because of access issues but because when I manually put in income and expenses it forces me to engage with my finances in a different way - I'm an active participant in my budget, not passively processing numbers. YMMV here.

I credit two things to the incredible (positive) changes in our financial situation over the past decade: 1) YNAB and 2) years of intermittently creeping on these MMM forums.

[BlueHouse]

To borrow a phrase, it has been said that Quicken is the worst such software except for all those others, so...?

I have used and loved Quicken for decades.  But it's very possible that my imagination is limited and I'm just used to what I've got. 
I love their new crosstab reports and how easy it is to check for any fraud or unauthorized purchases because I've got almost every account set up for auto download and auto-match of transactions. 

I realize that my mac will need to be retired within the next few years, and I'm wondering if I'll still need a laptop or if I just need a tablet, in which case I don't think Quicken will be an option, so I am open to changing over the Mint or something similar, so I'll be watching this topic closely.

[lollylegs]

Another YNAB fan here. I really like being able to 'give every dollar a job'  & have sinking funds for future expenses easily set up. I like the amount of detail I can get from it and would also consider using it a big part of our ability to reduce debt and save more.

[lutorm]

Since you said you don't want any manual typing, it's probably not for you, but I recently started using https://github.com/beancount. It's entirely text based, which is a strength for me since I like using my normal programming tools. It also keeps my financial data away from third parties, which is important to me. It's an accounting tool, not a budget tool, per se.

[lifeisshort123]

I agree with Excel.  I have tried using mint on and off for a decade, and I cannot figure out how to use it.  I mean, I know generally how to use it, but it is so eager to tell me I am overspending - especially when there are categories that typically don’t have a large monthly regular purchase, but on occasion have a large purchase (say a major car repair, insurance costs, etc.)

[Chippewa]

All the above and a spreadsheet :)
Personally Mint for monitoring and a spreadsheet are great for budgeting.
But PC gets a lot of praise for tracking investments.

[EchoStache]

I have Mint setup but don't like it.  I really can't figure out an easy way for my transactions to populate and show my current month expenses by category. 

I just setup YNAB but so far, my transactions aren't populating.  The balances show, but that's it.  I'm hoping it just takes a few days for the transactions to start posting so I'm going to give it some time(free trial currently).

I've used Every Dollar in the past and LOVED it.  Yes, it was $79/year, but it is so user friendly that it was worth it for me.  Very easy to see every transaction that posts and VERY user friendly to drop it into an expense category.  For me, it made it very very easy to see exactly how much money I've spent every month and in what category.  So for a very controllable expense such as eating out, its really easy to see if spending is getting close to my budgeted amount for the month.  We aren't ones who only eat out once or twice a year, but we also aren't willing to blow $1,000+/month as MANY do without realizing it.  I like to budget and be aware if I'm over or under budget.  If I hit my eating out budget for the month, I still have the freedom to go over a bit, but Every Dollar made me aware of it BEFORE it was too late and the money was already spent.

With Mint, unless I just haven't figured out how to do it, I just haven't been able to easily track each expense for the month in this way.

I'm hoping I can do it with YNAB but if not, I'll likely switch back to every dollar.  If it prevents me from overspending in one category just once per year by $80, I'm getting my moneys worth out of it.

[Michael in ABQ]

I've been using Personal Capital for a few years. It works for what I need.

The connections to some accounts break sometimes and I have to enter a 2FA for 2-3 accounts every time I login. The automatic categorization is hit or miss. It doesn't seem to remember when I'm consistently changing something to different category, and I don't think there's a way to setup up rules manually.

However, I gave up trying to track every dollar to a certain category a couple of years ago. We're naturally frugal and with an irregular income so it's just not worth trying to assign every dollar to a budget category. Most of our expenses are fairly fixed (rent, utilities, tuition, groceries, insurance, etc.). I can look in PC and see how much we spent on gas last month but it's not going to change the fact that we have to drive our kids to school and drive to work.

I mainly use it to keep track of the big picture and see our various credit card balances in one place so I can decide when throughout the month to pay each one off. I do tradeline sales so I always want to keep at least a small balance on those cards - but it also can't be more than 10% of the credit line.

[elysianfields]

Gnucash is free, can download most transactions, does double-entry bookkeeping, and probably runs well on the platform you’re using (Windows, MacOS, Linux).

[dandarc]

I've been using Wave accounting - free, cloud based. Links to basically anything available via Plaid. I used to keep my own spreadsheet, but this has made it so much easier to have the level of detail I like for tracking spending.  Export anything in the reports section or the raw transaction data to CSV if you really want to dig in in the future. My main complaint is there's a chart on the dashboard I wish I could put custom dates into - the "standard" accounting reports are good, but the visualizations are pretty limited.

Also have used it for a non-profit and my one-person S-Corp (they have an integrated payroll that does cost money that I like now that I'm used to it). So one accounting system for both business and personal works well for me.

[cdub]

I'm a HUGE YNAB fan. They increased their price recently but it's still totally worth it.

I'm bummed that they closed down their official forums though.