SVreX
MegaDork
11/21/18 9:09 a.m.
OK, I'll confess. I am a little suspicious giving my online bank account numbers and access passwords to anybody. But I also understand this stuff doesn't work any other way.
I am looking for a budgeting tool that can be accessed from different devices and locations. Bill paying, tracking, budgeting. As automated as possible. I don't want to get buried in continually trying to update it and keep it current. Credit scores are also good.
Sounds like Mint, doesn't it?
So, security is paramount, and ease of use. I am not a detail person, and don't care about the nitty gritty. But I want to be able to work together with my wife while I am on the road to make better budgeting and financial decisions. Neither of us are actually "numbers people". I understand numbers very well and am excellent at seeing trends and direction, but only care about the big picture. She feels intimidated by numbers. For the past few years, I have deposited my check and she has handled all the bills. She's overwhelmed, and I am out of touch. My fault. I need to make it better.
Suggestions?
mtn
MegaDork
11/21/18 9:13 a.m.
Mint is good. They’re also safe. And I say this as someone who worked in Bank risk and fraud, and now works in FinTech.
The problem I had with it was that I had to update passwords too much and got tired of it.
SVreX
MegaDork
11/21/18 9:29 a.m.
In reply to mtn :
Update Mint passwords? Or update your other account passwords TO Mint?
wae
SuperDork
11/21/18 9:39 a.m.
Mint needs to have the passwords to your various accounts which means every time you go through and change passwords (which you should be doing frequently-ish) you've got to log in to Mint and update it there. It usually takes me a month or two to finally get around to doing that. Which reminds me...
SVreX said:
In reply to mtn :
Update Mint passwords? Or update your other account passwords TO Mint?
As long as you use "strong" passwords, you'll be fine. I've had MINT for years...................I still don't pay attention to my budget.
pheller
UltimaDork
11/21/18 10:10 a.m.
Other options are:
gnucash
You Need a Budget - YNAB - Fee based
Personal Capital
https://thewirecutter.com/money/best-budgeting-apps-and-tools/
Does Mint ask for your SSN?
Following.
I have a mint account, but it does seem like it's always having issues connecting to my stuff, so I've not gotten very far with it.
Passwords can get out of sync with Mint if you update the password on your banking website, which makes it annoying. I've had it try to login to the bank couple times and lock the account I just updated a password on. This causes an loop of idiocy to occur where you need to have Mint and the banking account open, update the bank the immediately update Mint so it doesn't try to jam the wrong password into the bank when it launches and scrapes the data.
Mint doesn't actually appear to access the entire dataset from the bank (ie. They're not exporting and importing data through the export CSV function most banks have) it's some sort of metadata scrape which, if your bank updates their software, it can cause Mint to stop functioning from time to time. Mint customer support is significantly less than helpful in these situations even after you point out where their error lies.
It also has the tendency to duplicate accounts during a banking software update, which causes some funky numbers to show up, and there's no way to easily rectify the issue without deleting or hiding the "old" account which causes a historical data loss. Sometimes they'll catch it or the "closed" function actually works as intended and the problem goes away. It's a coin flip most of the time but it's been a persistent issue with my Vanguard retirement account.
There's also no way to easily search by date range for transactions. Mint states this is "by design" but it's more likely a technical limitation of how they're maintaining the psudo-GL in accounting terms (ie. they're still posting batch for some godawful reason.)
There's also a problem where you can't mark a property as sold which means you have to remove it to rectify the net worth and debts accounts from the mortgage. That causes things to go all out of wack with the historical data saying you owed a ton of money in the past for a phantom asset.
It's not a bad tool but there's some limitations to be aware of.
SVreX
MegaDork
11/21/18 11:15 a.m.
Thanks! That’s helpful.
Can Mint be used effectively for budgeting and short term planning without long term investment accounts, or is it best used compressible?
I have an investment planning tool that both my accountant and I are happy with
It's not bad as a budgeting tool provided you're willing to invest some time into setting them up each month. YNAB is a bit more flexible in that area. I wouldn't use it for investments either. I use it more as a check for "what's the current balance in" "did the dividends post" and "did the automatic withdraw into the IRA actually happen, and show me the balancing entry" for investment accounts.
I have Mint linked to a few of the automatic bill accounts as well, it doesn't pay the bills, just reminds me that they're coming out a few days in advance. There isn't an automatic adjustment for variable bills like the electric bill either unfortunately.
SVreX
MegaDork
11/21/18 11:46 a.m.
In reply to The0retical :
I could do without the bill paying. Sounds like you use it in much the same way I would
As I am understanding it, Mint requires monthly budget setup. My expenses and income are quite stable. I’d like to be able to “roll over” the monthly budget to the next month automatically.
Sounds like YNAB is better at this.
I use YNAB, I like it for its ease of use and that it doesn’t HAVE to be linked to accounts. I can input and change anything from my phone or laptop anywhere and even if it gets hacked there is no real personal info. Plus, the “top tips” that display at start up are great; like “fold your cash in half to double its face value”. Right?
SVreX
MegaDork
11/21/18 12:00 p.m.
In reply to chandler :
But it can be, right?
Does YNAB require opening a new bank account? That might be a non-starter for me.
SVreX
MegaDork
11/21/18 12:25 p.m.
For anyone following along, I found this to be a really useful article:
Mint vs YNAB
In reply to SVreX :
The budget does roll into the next month automatically with the same values. I always end up adjusting mine based on the electric bill, which with the kids and weather tends to be more variable than I'd like. It also forces me to look at the catch-all leftover for the month so I can figure out exactly where the money is going.
I also adjust it for things like pellets and wood specifically rather than rolling them into a catch-all category.
SVreX said:
In reply to chandler :
But it can be, right?
Does YNAB require opening a new bank account? That might be a non-starter for me.
As far as I understand it, no. It just allows you to mass import from a csv or xls all the transactions over a period (most banking software allows the download of this information), rather than scraping the banking data automatically.
If you want it to scrape there's a monthly fee associated I believe.
SVreX
MegaDork
11/21/18 1:20 p.m.
In reply to The0retical :
Not sure that’s correct.
Tgat article I linked above appears to be saying the old version of YNAB only imported CSVs manually, but the new version can import automatically.
In reply to SVreX :
Ah ok. I must have been thinking of Dave Ramsey's Every Dollar budgeting app that he used to advertise. I get them confused occasionally as I use Mint.
My mistake.
I don’t import anything, I started with whatever the balance was when I started and then worked forward from there inputting as I spend then marking it off against the statement. No new account needed and no need to link it.
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