While the mobile apps require Dropbox, this minor inconvenience is worth it to keep track of your budgets from your phones and tablets. Creating and managing your budget is a breeze, and the options for reports can help you manage your home budget, making this one of the best personal account software applications. Thanks to personal finance applications, managing and tracking budgets, expenses, cash flows, and potential savings is easier than ever and far less time-consuming. We’ve covered quite a few finance apps for the Mac down the years, which shows a growing interest in this category. We did a round-up.
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Since its founding in 2006, has grown from a into a formidable personal finance tool with more than 15 million users. Acquired by Intuit in 2009, Mint has become the budgeting go-to for tech-savvy consumers who want a convenient place to manage their money on the go. You can use Mint via its website or apps made for iOS and Android devices. Despite its massive following, however, Mint has some drawbacks. We’ll take a closer look at them in this article, and recommend a few alternatives in case your love affair with the site has cooled, or you simply want a service with a slightly different approach. A Quick Overview of Mint.com What can you do on Mint? If you’re unfamiliar with the site, here’s an overview of the main features:.
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Stay on top of your budget: Mint lets you see where your money is going with a quick glance. Once you know your spending patterns, you can set up a budget to help you meet your goals, dialing back spending in one area to save in another. Free credit score: can have a huge impact on your financial freedom, so it’s important to know where you stand. (Note, however, that the score you’ll get from Mint is not your FICO score, which is based on your credit reports from all three credit bureaus and is the one most lenders check. Mint’s score uses information from Equifax only.). Custom alerts: Mint can tip you off if you’re overspending, wasting too much money on ATM fees, or approaching an important bill due date.
It can also let you know if there’s an unusual transaction that could be fraudulent. Pay bills: With Mint Bills, you can pay whomever you owe with a couple of clicks by hooking up a bank account or credit card. Track investments: Wherever you’ve stashed your money — 401(k)s, IRAs, mutual funds, brokerage accounts — you can see how it’s performing compared to market benchmarks. You can also keep an eye on fees and get advice on asset allocation. Track your net worth: Mint integrates all of your assets and debts to keep a running tally of your — one of the best gauges of.
If you’re a homeowner, it will even factor in your home’s estimated value (via real estate website Zillow) and remaining mortgage debt. How Mint.com Makes Money It’s free to sign up for an account on Mint.com, and unlike many other competitors, there are no premium accounts that require a fee for you to unlock more features. Mainly, the site makes money when you sign up for some of the sponsored services it recommends, such as, brokers, or credit cards. When you use these services, Mint.com gets a referral fee for being the middleman. According to, Mint.com has also recently started running banner ads, which are typically pay-per-click. The site also sells its deep pools of financial data to different providers, but it’s important to note that this information doesn’t contain users’ personal information — it is aggregate information about users’ financial habits on the whole.
Downsides of Mint.com For a free service, Mint is fairly robust. But it’s aging — not gracefully, many say — and has some drawbacks that have sent some users searching for an alternative:. Categorizing transactions can be clunky: Mint automatically funnels your transactions into categories such as entertainment, transportation, and food and dining. Unfortunately, the process is far from seamless and users say they often have to change where their transactions end up manually. Data synchronization hiccups: Many Mint users, including some here at The Simple Dollar, have had trouble keeping their various bank accounts synced with the service, sometimes experiencing lags of up to a week. Ads and suggested services: As we discussed above, this is how Mint keeps its services free. But some users complain that all the advice they receive on Mint is tied to a sponsored service.
Weak investment feature: If you’ve invested any amount of money, you may be underwhelmed at Mint’s investments feature. Though you can see where your money is, you can’t do much with it since there is no way to manage asset allocation. Reporting isn’t that great: You can’t generate any reports or financial statements via Mint. The only functionality in this area is the ability to export transactions using a CSV file that you can open in Excel. Weak customer service: With a free product, customer service is typically one of the first areas to suffer, and several reviewers say Mint needs improvement here. If you need help, you can browse a community forum or fill out a Web form for a personalized response, which Mint says should come within 24 hours. There is also a chat feature.
However, there is no phone support for immediate answers. Security fears: Mint.com touts its triple-layer security, which includes bank-grade 128-bit SSL data encryption and a mobile PIN.
But the fact remains that when all of your financial data is laid bare and synched with the institutions themselves in one place, a cyber breach could be very damaging. You could also be liable for any losses, depending on whether your financial institutions prohibit you from sharing your account information with third-party sites. Lacks running register: Without a running register, you really don’t know exactly how much money you have at any given moment, since transactions take time to clear. Alternatives to Mint.com One of Mint’s longtime alternatives is Quicken, but its future is currently up in the air. Intuit announced in August that it would try to find a buyer for the well-known desktop-based personal finance software, once the bedrock of Intuit’s business.
Mint, owned by Intuit, is well-positioned to snap up some of Quicken’s users, but it’s not as fully featured and (like most alternatives) doesn’t allow users to import Quicken data. Fortunately, whether you’re jumping ship from Quicken or simply want a different feature set than Mint offers, there are a lot of alternatives. Here are three of the best: CountAbout set out to specifically address some of the shortfalls of services such as Mint.com. For instance, it offers a running register balance, and it’s one of the few services that lets you import data from Quicken.
It uses a paid-subscription business model, so you won’t see any ads or be pitched any services. In addition, CountAbout pledges not to sell your data to anyone, and stores only your email address on its servers. “CountAbout can import users’ historical Quicken data, so users can pick up with CountAbout where they left off with Quicken,” says Joseph M. Carpenter, CountAbout co-founder. Advertising Disclosure: TheSimpleDollar.com has an advertising relationship with some of the offers included on this page. However, the rankings and listings of our reviews, tools and all other content are based on objective analysis. The Simple Dollar does not include all card/financial services companies or all card/financial services offers available in the marketplace.
For more information and a complete list of our advertising partners, please check out our full. TheSimpleDollar.com strives to keep its information accurate and up to date. The information in our reviews could be different from what you find when visiting a financial institution, service provider or a specific product's website. All products are presented without warranty.
Best finance apps for Android Shutterstock.com Google’s Android operating system has a huge selection of personal finance apps. That’s great, but it also means that weeding out the less useful apps can be a challenge. The 1st step to finding the right finance app is deciding what you want to accomplish.
Many apps try to do one thing well. Do you want to know your credit card balance, investment status or a bill’s due date? Or do you want to know when you have $200 left in your entertainment budget for the month? To make any financial app useful, expect to make a commitment to inputting and maintaining data.
But a good app will make that process as painless as possible. Lastly, have realistic expectations. No app alone will make you change your spending habits or add discipline to your budgeting.
A word on security Storing financial information in your phone means you risk exposing it to anyone who accesses your phone. Make sure your phone has password protection, and set up your financial apps with an additional password for logging in.
All the apps reviewed here have password protection. Apps from your bank Shutterstock.com, Virtual Wallet Financial service providers have really stepped up in providing apps. Prior to purchasing a third-party app, try the one offered by your bank. The major banks have apps that report the balances on your accounts, find ATMs, let you access e-bills and pay bills. It’s important to keep in mind, though, that the account balance you see is based on how often the data is updated or when transactions clear, and isn’t necessarily “real time.” Top pick Virtual Wallet by PNC Price: Free This app presents customers with a lot of service in a pretty package. It has all the banking features that you’d expect — bill pay, money transfer and remote deposits — but what sets it apart is its intuitive budgeting interface that makes tracking spending and paying bills easy. Loan calculators DrCalculator Auto Loan Calculator by Xinify Networks Apps Price: Free This app is fast and compact and has some nice features.
It calculates loan and lease payments. It gives you the flexibility to calculate several kinds of loans using different variables. If you have all the purchase information, it gives you the effect of a cash rebate.
Karl’s Mortgage Calculator by DrCalculator Price: Free This app is simple, to the point and easy to read. It can calculate payments on fixed-rate and adjustable-rate loans.
It features a simple amortization schedule that can adjust for extra payments of principal. If you want to get fancy, you can upgrade to their professional app. Budgeting apps Shutterstock.com, Anza Money Bank apps report balances as of a given date, but it can take a while for your balance to reflect new purchases. If you are a diligent budgeter who keeps receipts for recording either on paper or in your computer, there are Android apps that allow you to input information on the spot to keep track of bank balances and budgeting. Top pick Anza Money FREE by Anza Software LLC Price: Free A powerful tool that will let you upload your bank accounts, it has all the things to look for in a budget application. These features include:.
Income tracking. Expenses for multiple accounts. Customizable income and expense categories. The ability to split expenses between different categories. This is their free version and limits the number of transactions you can have; if you like it, you can always upgrade to the premium version for $9.95.
Also worth looking at Cashbook Expense Tracker by Frank Android Software Price: $5.99 This is a very strong app, and over the years, developers have connected it to services that add a lot of utility. For instance, you can export the data, import more data, change categories and then save it to a private cloud service like Dropbox. Financial aggregator apps Shutterstock.com, Mint Bills by Intuit These apps are designed to pull together and combine information from financial institutions such as banks and credit card companies using your username and password. That makes some people nervous, but aggregation technology and security is over 10 years old and has proven to be reliable. Make sure you read the user agreements prior to inputting your info, and to log in and then log out of the app each time you use it. Top pick Mint Bills by Intuit Price: Free This app aggregates all your accounts, allowing you to conveniently pay your bills and avoid late fees. Features:.
Set reminders to notify you when bills are due. Easily pay bills from inside the app with just a few swipes. Sync your bank accounts with the app and it will track your expenses and split your spending into categories.
Also worth looking at Mint.com Personal Finance by Intuit Inc. Price: Free This is an app version of the popular financial aggregation site. Note that you have to enroll on the website to use the Android application.