This post is 3,174 words, a 15-minute read.
Long one today, each section has an overall segment that tells you everything you need to know about each app. If you have other questions, please comment below or message me on any IG, @bykelechiwuaba or email me ramblingmindshow@gmail.com.
With Mint shut down last year, thanks Intuit 😑. I was on a search for a new budgeting and spending tracker app. This will be my synopsis of all the ones I try.
Before getting into any of the apps, a word of caution. Using an app should not replace you actually creating a plan for your money. The app is just to facilitate and monitor my money plan. I still use paper and pen when deciding how I want to spend my money every month.
Also, I have bad news for all my fellow cheapskates out there. Unfortunately, there is only one free(ish) option on the list. Mint was offered for free because there was a multitude of ads and they sold our data (which I guess I never minded). None of these providers sell data or have ads. It will be a necessary mind switch to pay for the benefit of transactions being automatically categorized and uploaded.
I will be ranking each platform in Four Categories. Each will get a score out of 5. Keep in mind that I am a recovering Mint user, meaning everything will be out of that perspective. There is nothing objective about this review.
Ease of Use: from set up to monthly updates
Fun: Managing money should be FUN not a job
Customizability: Can I make this software do what I want
Tracking trends and goals
With all the intro done, LET'S GET STARTED!
🚀Rocket Money
The most popular of the three. This is part of the Rocket Companies, owner of Rocket Mortgage. It was formerly known as Truebill before it was purchased by Rocket Companies. Rocket is hoping to use Rocket Money as a way to get people invested in their products. This way when people are looking for a mortgage they would use them.
Overall: Rocket Money is good for people who need help keeping track of their subscriptions and reoccurring expenses. It is the only app that I found that has a free option if you do not want or need the premium features such as bill negotiation, cancellation concierge, and net worth tracker. If you are a power user meaning you like to get into the details of your expenses or if you like to customize things, Rocket Money will not work for you.
Ease of Use: 5/5
Fun: 5/5
Customizability: 1/5
Tracking trends and goals: 1/5
🎈Score: 3/5
💲Cost: Free-ish/Pay What you think is fair, I think it is a good price is between $3-$5/month
Pros
Ease of USE is amazing
Adding all my accounts was fast and easy.
Took me about 5 minutes to add about 10 different bank and credit card accounts and one investment account
It was easy to adjust what each account was.
I have a bunch of subaccounts in my savings account with SoFi. It initially identified these as Investment accounts but it was easy to change these to savings accounts
Places all your recurring charges in one place to see and plan for easily.
It does a relatively good job of categorizing your expenses and also makes it easy to change categories
Cons
It is primarily designed for Mobile users
You cannot create a budget on the website, only on the app
This might not be a problem for most people. But if you are a power user this will be a pain
I was unable to create customizable categories using the non-premium version.
Not sure if you can create these with the full version
Although the base categories are okay, for those of you power users who like to create subcategories, this will not let you do that
Cannot track investments in the free version
No option for setting goals
Can't compare spending or see trends in spending
Takeaway: I will not be using Rocket Money. It is far too limited for what I like especially coming from Mint.
🔢Simplifi by Quicken
This app is based on the original Personal Finance Management app created in 1983. It was owned by Intuit but with their acquisition of Mint, they sold Quicken to H.I.G Capital in 2016. Who sold it to Aquiline Partners, who revamped the entire software and relaunched it as Quicken Simplifi.
Overall: It can feel overwhelming when you first set everything up. It has none of the fun items of Mint. It is very much function first and everything else comes second. However, it is very POWERFUL! It has a no-holds-barred approach to managing your finances. If you want a tool that makes you feel like a pro, this is the one to go for. You can tweak things exactly the way you want. It puts as much information as possible at your fingertips. It does not have a credit report page which is a big miss.
Ease of Use: 2/5
Fun: 1/5
Customizability: 5/5
Tracking trends and goals: 5/5
🎈Score: 3.25/5
💲Cost: $47.88/year but it was running a special for $28.73/year. This is a great price. As of writing, they are running a special for 3 months free.
Pros:
Very powerful. This app is for anyone who wants all the tools at their fingertips to control their money as much as possible.
Category customization is unlimited and for a nerd like me it was awesome
You are the king of the app. You make it what you want it to be
Automatic categorization was powerful and very specified
It did a great job of finding a ton of my monthly income, bills, and payments
However, this was also a con (details below)
It does a great job of matching transfers between accounts
Love the ability to see the other side of transfer charges to be able to connect transfers properly
The reports generated for comparison in spending, income, savings, net worth, and even a refund tracker
It does a great monthly summary to give you a quick synopsis of your previous month’s income and spending.
Similar to #MoveMints but it is nowhere as fun. It is just a page with words and a few graphs
The investment tab is very detailed.
It shows all your investments both index funds and single stocks
You can choose which to see in the account (I don't like seeing my retirement accounts regularly)
I like the Achievements. For nerds who need goals to target, this is a great way to help make it more tangible
Can search for anything you want on almost any screen. This comes in handy when you have too many categories to look through
I love the customizability of colors.
You can change between light and dark mode (actual dark mode)
Plus you change the accent colors
Cons
The setup was very involved. It took much longer than setting up Rocket Money and Monarch Money.
It asked a lot in the set-up, which was kinda annoying
However, that long setup process made a massive difference in making sure the right items were being tracked for recurring expenses and income
Plus it might just be me having too many bank accounts
I was unable to connect one bank account(One Finance) and a Mortgage Account
This caused problems with the transfer matching
Annoyance with a few of my banks always asking me to put in a two-factor code on every login (Wells Fargo & M1 Finance)
The tracking of recurring income and expenses is very powerful but the way it goes about it can be frustrating at times.
If you have a ton of accounts or credit cards and have used those cards at any point in time as your primary card (for things like getting points) expect a lot of double charges
It could not distinguish the same charge from different accounts and even after setting up rules, it would show old charges as regular charges
Same with income if you have worked for multiple companies recently
If you have an account with multiple savings accounts like Ally Buckets or Vaults in SoFi or One Finance Pockets
Simplifi has a hard time distinguishing between each transaction between each savings account
Although it would give the note that it appeared on your statement in the right way.
For example it would show "Transfer To Dates Fund", it could not use that information to categorize the transfer
This would not be a problem ordinarily but as it tries to match all your transfers. It makes things much more complicated when it mismatches transfers
Adjusting these was a job in itself and was something that I had to keep doing over the 30 days i used the platform
It also means you cannot create a rule for those transfers because it does not have the information needed to set the proper rule
No fun. It feels more like an accounting document than a personal finance app and platform
The Monthly Summary was a missed opportunity to add a bit of fun to the app.
Making it into a highlight reel would have been much better than just a static page
The investment page needs a pie chart, not a bar graph
For nerds like me, I love to know what percentage a stock or fund makes up of my portfolio
I wish it would bring in your cost basis for each stock you buy for a better understanding of your total return rather than just a daily return
The Achievements Page was another missed opportunity for adding fun to the platform
A badge alone is lame. Make it like Robinhood with confetti for each badge you unlock
Also, some of the goals are too far apart
Give more in-between goals to accomplish there should be something between a Net worth goal of $10k and $250k
Moving data from Mint was a bit of a pain because you have to do it one bank at a time and as someone with 10+ bank accounts, it can be very annoying.
The biggest CON is there is nowhere for credit information
Although I could care less about my credit (once you get 750 it does not matter), it would be great for those who are working towards improving their credit.
Takeaway: This is great and I could have gotten used to using it. However, I need fun when managing my money. This was not fun enough for me. But I loved the customization.
👑Monarch Money
Monarch was made by the original creators of Mint before it was acquired by Intuit. I had a lot of folks I know and trust recommend it as a good replacement for Mint. With both of these factors, my expectations were set pretty high. So I saved what I thought would be the best for last. But it ended up being more of a complicated story.
Overall: Monarch is the most Mintlike of all the apps. You can tell how much this app was inspired by Mint. However, you can tell they wanted to do something different and better than Mint. It reminded me of the pain of first using Mint but then the joy of feeling in control of my money. The design is dope and simple. The colors are nice and welcoming. It is easy to get started with but has a learning curve to make it what you want. I wish it had a credit page and that the trends were easier to compare. This app is great for any recovering Mint addict and for anyone in a relationship. It takes so many of the parts you love from Mint and improves upon it. However, it is expensive. But I would say the price is worth it.
Ease of Use: 3/5
Fun: 4/5
Customizability: 5/5
Tracking trends and goals: 5/5
🎈🎉🎊Score: 4.25/5
Cost: $14.99/month or $100/year ($8.33/month). You can get a 7-day free trial but that isn't nearly enough time in my opinion to fully test it out. I need them to make the trial period at least one month.
If you use this link you can get a one-month free trial.
Use code “MINT50” for 50% off the annual subscription.
Pros
The setup was fast and easy.
Provided a variety of ways to connect to your banks and credit cards
This ensures that you can connect to every single account you have
There was no account I could not connect
I love the ability to connect to Venmo (wish it would do the same for Cash App)
I love the Cashflow page.
This is the best-designed way I have ever seen to demonstrate money coming in and going out
It has an option between a bar graph or a Sankey Diagram (see above), I always chose the later because it was beautiful to look at
You can choose to get as detailed as you would like on see how exactly you are spending your money which is amazingly helpful when you need to determine month to month changes for your finances
I love that it puts your savings rate right in front of you and you can compare it month over month or year over year or whatever period you desire.
This is the foundation of all financial decisions so being able to see it and not have to calculate it manually is amazing
I love the way Monarch shows recurring expenses and income
It displays it on a calendar for you to see when each payment will be due
I love this as a quick way to see what payments are coming up. Eliminating app that I currently use to track bill due dates.
However, this has its drawbacks when compared to Simplifi (more in the Cons section)
Investments Page is very detailed
I love the comparison tool against the S&P 500 over any period of time you want to compare
Unfortunately, I could not see individual holdings from my M1 Finance Account but I could add these manually (more on this below)
The budget page is AWESOME!!
I loved spending my time on this page, it reminded me of Mint so MUCH!!
I love the feature of seeing how I have spent over the last 3 months so I can set a realistic budget target
I love the way I can choose to either set a budget for an overall group of categories or for individual categories
I love how it always has the other categories hidden but available so when planning it can be a reminder of one off spending that has to take place in a month
The notification system is a very nice touch on multiple levels
Level one is the basic notification you get when you go over budget limits
Level two is the notification you get to review purchases and ensure they are in the right categories
Level three is the notification of upcoming recurring payments or expenses
This eliminates two apps on my phone that I have been for subscription tracking
Level four is the most important. If you have a partner (wife, husband, financial advisor) anyone can notify each other to review a purchase and ensure we are on the same page consistently.
The Fun factor returned!
Having emojis and colorful representation of your expenses may seem small but it makes the site less intimidating
The monthly review was awesome. Just like Mint, it makes it interesting to look through your monthly spending to get a quick overview of what you've been doing with your money.
👎🏾Cons
Set up was much more subdued than Simplifi but that was not a good thing
I was not prompted to categorize expenses and income once I connected my bank accounts
It took a while to go through and categorize things properly
You are better off starting fresh than trying to load existing expenses
I think part of my issue was trying to add my mint transaction history which might have messed up the process
Monarch only shows your recurring expenses and it only does so with Merchants (simplified description of transactions) and most of the charges it discovered were incorrect
It did not choose the most recent charge to base expenses. It repeatedly used old credit cards or bank accounts charges
Although the Cashflow page is nice, it does not have a way to compare spending like you can on Mint (just added this in a beta mode)
It would be very helpful to see how your spending is changing month over month for various categories
It's weird cause on the budget page there is a feature to see how much you have spent in a category over the last three months so you can better set your monthly budget
This feature needs to be a full feature not a highlighted hidden feature within one page
None of my holdings in my M1 Finance account was added to the Investment Page despite it being able to display the total amount within the account
I had to add these holdings individually not a problem but it means I will have to continue updating the holdings manually
Monarch it will be lovely if you could find a way to more effectively communicate with M1 for this
Investing Page needs a pie chart as well as the bar graph for easy comparison
Also needs the option to compare individual holdings vs just comparing the types of holding
Should show MSFT, APPL, SCHD
Not just Stock, Mutual Fund, ETF, or Crypto
The biggest CON is there is nowhere for credit information
Same as Simplifi. Although I do not care about much about credit
It can be useful for certain people
Customizability of the colors
I like the base colors for Monarch but I would love the option to change the color scheme to match my personal money mood
Can we have an option to make Dark mode actually BLACK and not just Dark Blue.
PRICE: this is the most expensive one in the group. $100/year is asking a lot!
Extras: Things that I didn't test but could be useful in the future
AI Assistant: It can help you find ways to improve your finances by using your income, spending, debt, and investment data.
Not designed to be a replacement for you making decisions but rather help you cut through the noise of all your numbers
I hope it gets good enough to help me see where my bills (like insurance, phone, etc.) might be a too high compared to the market and can provide alternatives for me
Advice: Essentially something in between getting a full on Financial Advisor and having to research all on your own
I did not test out this feature as of the writing as it was a bonus and could not be compared to the other platforms.
👑Takeaway: This platform was difficult to set up initially. It took me time to navigate throughout the app and learn how to use it properly. I had to watch a couple videos to understand what it was doing. But once I figured it out, it was smooth sailing.
My Choice
Monarch Money.
A combination of FUN and Customizability made it stand out above the rest. Simplifi almost had me especially for the price but I just had more joy spending my time adjusting things on Monarch. I wish Monarch was cheaper but I am willing to pay the $100/year for it. (Would be dope to be sponsored by them though).
Regardless of the platform you choose to use, remember that an app is not the solution to your financial issues. You have to take the time to make a plan for your money. These platforms just facilitate your implementation of your plan, making it a bit easier to gather all your information in one place to make decisions much faster.
Let me know which platform you have chosen to use for tracking, budgeting, and planning your spending in the comments.