Stranded by Mint? This Budgeting App Is a Good Replacement

As an avid Mint consumer for years, I used to be heartbroken when the favored budgeting app shut down on March 23. I liked its straightforward navigation, number of options and unbeatable value of $0. What may I discover to take its place?

Mint inspired its customers emigrate their information to Credit Karma — which is owned by its father or mother firm, Intuit. But Credit Karma can’t compete with what Mint supplied. It solely gives a snapshot of your month-to-month spending and newest transactions, which doesn’t actually aid you create and persist with a finances.

So, I examined a lot of Mint alternate options to see which is likely to be the perfect alternative.  And I discovered some nice choices — together with the app I’m utilizing now.

Budgeting apps I examined

I selected to check a choice of standard budgeting apps that supply completely different value factors, options and budgeting approaches. All of them can be found for each iPhone and Android, and all of them (excluding WallyGPT) mean you can import your Mint information to make the change simpler.

• PocketGuard: Free model obtainable; $13 a month or $75 a 12 months for PocketGuard Plus
• Rocket Money: Free model obtainable; $4 to $12 a month for Premium (select what you pay; $4 and $5 choices are billed yearly)
• YNAB: $15 a month or $99 a 12 months (free 12 months for school college students)
• Quicken Simplifi: $4 a month, billed yearly
• WallyGPT: Free

Specifically, I used to be on the lookout for an app with options much like Mint’s, together with:

• Customizable classes
• The flexibility to regulate my finances as bills crop up
• A easy, intuitive consumer expertise
• Straightforward, useful insights
• An reasonably priced value

How I examined these budgeting apps

I linked my accounts to 4 completely different budgeting apps and tried them out concurrently for a number of weeks to see how they stacked up. (There was a fifth app I attempted to check, however was unsuccessful after a number of makes an attempt.)

At the top of my testing, I discovered two apps that Mint customers may take pleasure in — Rocket Money and PocketGuard — and two choices that aren’t much like Mint however present a unique strategy to budgeting. The final choice, WallyGPT, isn’t a viable match for Android or iOS customers, based mostly on the glitches our staff encountered.

My new budgeting app: Rocket Money

Noteworthy options:

• Links to exterior accounts
• Automated financial savings*
• Account sharing with a associate (in beta testing)*
• Credit rating viewing
• Credit report monitoring*
• Net value monitoring*
• Bill negotiation

After a number of weeks of attempting out these apps, my alternative to switch Mint is Rocket Money. Both PocketGuard and Rocket Money felt like comparable substitutions for Mint, however I discovered Rocket’s interface cleaner and simpler to make use of, and I’m a fan of its sliding pricing scale. I’ve been utilizing it since I concluded my check and proceed to seek out it delivers the knowledge I want with the simple consumer expertise I want.

Rocket Money has plenty of the identical options as Mint, providing free fundamental budgeting options and extra superior choices — automated financial savings, web value monitoring and credit score experiences — with its paid tier. Like PocketGuard, it additionally gives invoice negotiation as a separate service, which prices a portion of your financial savings if it’s profitable. 

Rocket Money’s interface is easy and intuitive to navigate. It’s straightforward to scan your budgeted spending, precise spending and projected financial savings to see how nicely you’re doing at a look. Editing finances classes and transactions was intuitive and required fewer steps than with PocketGuard.

I additionally liked what number of notification choices Rocket Money gives. You can choose to obtain alerts for a mess of essential monetary stats that will help you establish potential finances derailers and new alternatives to trim your bills.

In addition to an easier consumer expertise, what set Rocket Money other than PocketGuard for me is its seven-day free trial to check out premium options. If you resolve you wish to improve, you’ll select to pay between $4 and $12 a month. You get the identical options no matter how a lot you pay.

Unlike PocketGuard, Rocket Money doesn’t supply debt payoff planning. That’s not a dealbreaker for me, but it surely may give PocketGuard the sting for customers who worth this function.

How the opposite budgeting apps in contrast

PocketGuard: An in depth second

PocketGuard works equally to Rocket Money. You can hyperlink exterior accounts, create a customizable finances and categorize your transactions. It additionally gives invoice negotiation by means of its associate Billshark, which prices a portion of your financial savings if it succeeds.

PocketGuard’s free model is fairly fundamental however gives some budgeting instruments, expense monitoring and spending experiences. Its paid model gives extra customization, together with superior options like a debt payoff plan and automatic financial savings options.

But I disliked that PocketGuard doesn’t supply a free trial so you may discover its paid tier to see if it’s definitely worth the value. And since its paid model is among the pricier ones I examined — $13 a month or $75 a 12 months — this seems like a missed alternative for the service. 

As somebody used to working with Mint, I discovered the expertise of utilizing PocketGuard acquainted. It didn’t overwhelm me with pointless data, and I appreciated that I may see all my fundamental finances data at a look, together with classes I’ve overspent in and the way a lot cash I’d have left on the finish of the month.

My largest difficulty with Pocket Guard was that it’s not as intuitive as Mint. To edit how a lot I’d allotted for a class, for instance, I needed to click on on that class, choose “settings” after which select “edit budget.”

Compared to different apps the place you may tweak a class’s budgeted quantity on the identical display screen because the finances abstract, I discovered these additional steps irritating, particularly when first organising my finances. Editing transactions was an identical multistep course of that left me annoyed. 

YNAB: Robust, but it surely gained’t work for everybody

YNAB (which stands for You Need a Budget) makes use of the zero-based budgeting methodology. With this methodology, you are taking the cash you’ve earned and assign every greenback to a selected class till you will have $0 left. You can assign your cash manually or use Auto-Assign for recurring payments and bills.

By earmarking all of your funds, you discourage your self from spending cash you haven’t earned but. But, ought to one thing come up and you end up spending greater than you’ve allotted for a class, YNAB permits you to reassign {dollars} from a class that has funds obtainable. This permits for some flexibility, which even essentially the most rigorously crafted of budgets often wants.

The major YNAB finances display screen exhibits you the way a lot you’ve allotted to every class, the place you’ve overspent and the place you will have funds obtainable. Alerts up prime point out areas requiring your consideration. YNAB additionally gives mortgage payoff planning and free dwell workshops.

I can see how YNAB could possibly be nice for many who wish to discover ways to get higher management of their spending or preferring to dive into the nitty-gritty of how every greenback is used. But the zero-based budgeting methodology isn’t how I wish to handle my cash. I want to see upfront how a lot I count on to earn for the month and the place that cash will probably be going. With YNAB, you may solely allocate cash you’ve acquired, which I discover irritating. 

YNAB can also be the priciest app on this listing at $15 a month or $99 a 12 months. But there’s a prolonged 34-day trial to present it a check run earlier than committing. 

Quicken Simplifi: Not as intuitive as Mint, however value contemplating

Quicken’s budgeting app, Simplifi, gives budgeting and much extra, together with the power to observe your investments, property and liabilities and observe your web value. Simplifi additionally has some distinctive budgeting options that will help you keep on prime of your money circulate, reminiscent of:

• Tags, which allow you to additional categorize transactions inside a particular finances space.
• Watchlists to trace how a lot you spend for a particular payee, class or tag.
• Projected Balances, which estimate your steadiness over the subsequent 30 days.

You may create a lot of extremely customizable experiences, which you’ll be able to filter by date, class, payee and extra.

Those who need an total snapshot of their funds past merely budgeting, however who aren’t curious about zero-sum budgeting, may discover this a great different for YNAB.

However, regardless of what the title may suggest, I didn’t discover Quicken Simplifi significantly easy to make use of. The finances menu doesn’t present you your particular transactions or classes. Instead, you must click on on “Planned Spending” to see your finances classes, which requires plenty of scrolling. My telephone display screen solely confirmed me a few classes at a time.

Transactions that haven’t been categorized are below “Other Spending.” Once you’ve sorted these transactions into classes, you must toggle again to the “Planned Spending” display screen to see how this modifications how a lot you’ve spent in every class. Other apps mean you can view miscellaneous transactions on the identical display screen as your categorized transactions. Overall, I discovered the consumer expertise for budgeting to be clunky and never all the time intuitive.

In addition, Simplifi doesn’t supply a free model, and with no choice to pay month-to-month, you will need to decide to a full 12 months upfront. With no free trial, meaning you can pay for a 12 months’s value of options you gained’t actually use. I’d fairly pay a bit extra for the billing flexibility and talent to make sure I’m getting the perfect product for my wants.

WallyGPT: A no-go

I used to be wanting ahead to testing WallyGPT, the primary AI-powered budgeting app, however I by no means bought the prospect. I may set up the app on my Android machine, however after I tried to create a brand new account, I bought caught on an countless loading display screen. Other CNET Money editors with Androids had the identical difficulty.

iPhone customers had been equally out of luck — WallyGPT isn’t even obtainable on the App Store now. We reached out to WallyGPT however haven’t heard again.