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How Investment Fees Affect Wealth

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It costs money to invest. We pay all types of fees, some obvious, some not so obvious. In this article I’m going to walk through the most common investing fees you are likely to encounter. Then we’ll examine just how destructive a seemingly small amount of fees can be to your wealth and retirement.

Table of contents

Do Fees Really Matter?

Before looking at specific types of investment fees, let’s first ask whether fees really matter. To answer that question, the first thing we must recognize is that seemingly small fees, over time, can seriously reduce the value of an investment portfolio.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a paper on this very topic in 2014. It noted that “fees may seem small, but over time they can have a major impact on your investment portfolio.”

Invest fees affect on a portfolio over 20 years

Some have argued that fees don’t matter. Instead, what matters are returns after factoring in the fees. In other words, paying high fees is not only fine, but ideal, if the investment returns enough to justify the fees. Conceptually this makes sense. In practice, however, it falls apart.

Study after study after study shows that expensive investments underperform inexpensive investments. For example, Vanguard looked at the annualized returns for a 10 year period ending December 31, 2014 for two groups of mutual funds: 25% of the funds with the lowest expense ratio and 25% with the highest. The low-cost funds won.

Funds with lower costs outperform more expense ones

The primary way we keep fees down, as we’ll discuss more below, is to use low-cost index ETFs and mutual funds. It’s an approach Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and arguable the best investor alive today, supports:

Nevertheless, both individuals and institutions will constantly be urged to be active by those who profit from giving advice or effecting transactions. The resulting frictional costs can be huge and, for investors in aggregate, devoid of benefit. So ignore the chatter, keep your costs minimal, and invest in stocks as you would in a farm.

My money, I should add, is where my mouth is: What I advise here is essentially identical to certain instructions I’ve laid out in my will. One bequest provides that cash will be delivered to a trustee for my wife’s benefit. . . . My advice to the trustee could not be more simple: Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard’s.) I believe the trust’s long-term results from this policy will be superior to those attained by most investors – whether pension funds, institutions or individuals – who employ high-fee managers.

Types of Investment Fees

There are countless fees investors may encounter. I’m going to list them in the order you are more likely to encounter them. Some fees are virtually unavoidable, but can be kept to a minimum. Other fees should be avoided at virtually all costs. Frankly, the only fee that is truly unavoidable is the first one on our list–expense ratio.

Expense Ratio

Mutual funds and ETFs charge investors a fee. The fee covers the cost of the fund, including payroll, as well as profit for the fund company. Expense ratios are expressed as a percentage. For example, a fund that charges a one percent (1%) expense ratio would cost an investor 1% of the amount invested in the fund (e.g., $100,000 investment would cost $1,000 per year with a 1% expense ratio).

The expense ratio is practically unavoidable. Fidelity does offer a few funds with no expense ratio, but that’s the exception. Even low-cost fund provider Vanguard charges expense ratios on its ETFs and mutual funds.

Transaction Costs

There can be costs to buy and sell stocks, mutual funds and ETFs. By and large these costs are easy to avoid. Most mutual fund companies and brokers have gone to $0 trades if made online. There is, however, one important exception.

Many brokers charge a commission when you purchase a mutual fund (not an ETF). For example, I have an account at Merrill Edge, and the broker charges $19.95 when I purchase certain mutual funds. They do have a list of fee-free funds, but many of the funds I use from Vanguard would require payment of the commission.

For this reason, it’s important to understand the types of investments you want to make before choosing a broker. If you know, for example, that you’ll invest entirely in Vanguard funds, it makes sense to open an account at Vanguard or a broker that offers at a minimum free Vanguard ETFs. M1 Finance is a good example and a broker I also use.

Investment Advisor Fees

Advisor fees come in two forms: (1) a percentage of assets under management (AUM), or (2) a fixed or hourly fee. The vast majority of advisors charge a percentage of AUM, with 1% the industry standard (although fees do vary based on account size and services provided).

Some lower cost AUM advisors have entered the market over the past 10 years or so. Vanguard offers advisory services for just 30 basis points. A number of so called robo-advisors offer their services for about 25 basis points (e.g., Betterment and Wealthfront).

A growing list of advisors have turned to hourly or fixed fees. These arrangements almost always favor the client, as the total cost is generally far less than the AUM model. One such advisor is Mark Zoril of PlanVision.

As you’ll see in a minute, Advisor fees based on a percentage of AUM destroy more wealth than any other fee (although high expense ratios are a close second).

Load Fees

Some mutual funds charge what are called load fees. Front-end load fees are paid when you invest in a mutual fund with this type of fee; Back-end load fees when you sell.

Front-end load fees typically cost 5.75%. For every $100 invested, fees take $5.75, leaving $94.25 in your account. There’s absolutely no reason to invest in mutual funds that charge load fees. Ever!

Where to Find the Expense Ratio of a Mutual Fund

There are several easy ways to find the expense ratio of any mutual fund or ETF. For starts, you can Google the ticker symbol of the fund. VSTAX, for example, is Vanguards total stock market fund. Searching “VSTAX” returns the following result, including the fund’s expense ratio:

How to find expense ratio using Google
(The Expense Ratio of 0.04% is in the bottom right of the image)

You can also see if a fund charges a load fee AGTHX, an American Funds growth fund:

how to find load fees
Note the “Front load” of 5.75%

Another free tool that tracks both the expense ratio as well as any load fees is Morningstar. You can also check the prospectus of the funed.

As for investment advisor fees, you should ask. It’s as simple as that. It should also be reflected on your statements. You can also find fee disclosures in the advisor’s Form ADV. But asking is much easier.

How to Determine the Expense Ratio of Your Investment Portfolio

While it’s important to know the expense ratio of each investment, what really matters is the overall expense ratio of your portfolio. You could calculate this by hand. Just take the weighted average of your expense ratios across all of your investments. If that sounds as inviting as a root canal, there is an easier way. Use Personal Capital.

Personal Capital is a free financial dashboard. Link all your financial accounts (checking, savings, credit cards, retirement accounts, HSAs, loans, taxable investments) and Personal Capital provides a wealth of tools. You can do everything from budgeting to loan payoff to retirement planning. And for our purposes, it will automatically calculate the expense ratio of your investment portfolio.

Here’s the results from a demo portfolio I entered into Personal Capital:

Note the 0.10% annual fee to the right. That’s the expense ratio of a portfolio that included dozens of investments. You can read my review of Personal Capital or go directly to its free signup page (truly free-no credit card needed–ever).

How Fees Affect Your Wealth

Let’s imagine that we make the maximum contribution to an IRA ($6,000) during our working years from age 20 to 65. If we earn an average of a 9% return on our investments, we’ll retire with about $3.1 million (gotta love compounding).

Now let’s assume we pay an investment advisor a “small” 1% fee. Our retirement fund drops to $2.3 million. Add in a 1% expense ratio on the mutual funds, and our nest egg falls further to $1.7 million. Yeah, fees matter.

How to Avoid Most Investment Fees

There are several important steps to take to keep you fees low.

Low cost index funds: First, stick to low cost index funds (ETFs or mutual funds). They outperform the vast majority of actively managed funds over time. There are plenty of sound “lazy portfolios” that make for great long-term investment strategies. Here are a few of them:

Avoid Expensive Advisors: There’s simply no good reason to pay more than about 0.30% of AUM, at the most. Vanguard offers its services at this price. Why pay more? And there are plenty of advisors who charged by the hour, which is even better.

Consider Automated Investment Services: For those that want a little help, you can consider a robo advisor. They come in all shapes and sizes. I like Betterment and Wealthfront for those who want a set-it-and-forget-it arrangement. Cost is about 25 basis points. For those who want more control, M1 Finance is the way to go. It lets you create your own mutual fund (they call them Pies). It’s easy to use, easy to rebalance, and free.

Personal Capital Review and User’s Guide (Update for 2021)

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Personal Capital is a financial tool that enables you to manage 100% of your finances from a single dashboard. I’ve used the app for years. In this Personal Capital review and user’s guide, I’ll walk through all of its features and how to leverage them to help you make the most of your money.

Table Of Contents
  1. Getting Started with Personal Capital
  2. Personal Capital Banking
  3. Personal Capital Investing
  4. Personal Capital Planning
  5. Personal Capital FAQs

This article contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. The opinions and views expressed, however, are our own.

Getting Started with Personal Capital

The first step is to sign up for a free account. Then you want to connect all of your financial accounts. While Personal Capital is perhaps best known for analyzing and tracking investments, I also connect all of my bank accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgage, and even my home. You can add your home and Personal Capital will pull in the value from Zillow.

Get Personal Capital for Free

Linking Your Accounts

Over the years I’ve linked may of the following types of accounts to Personal Capital:

  • Bank Accounts (checking, savings, CDs, money market accounts)
  • Retirement Accounts (401k, 403b, TSP, IRA, among others)
  • Non-Retirement Investment Accounts
  • HSA
  • Credit Cards
  • Mortgage
  • Student Loans
  • Personal Loans

You can link just about any financial account for which you have online access. You’ll need your username and password for each account. To link an account, you’ll search for the name of your financial institution in the “Link Your Account” dialog box on Personal Capital (you get to it by clicking the “+” icon near the top left of the Dashboard):

Link Your Account to Personal Capital

Tip: You can search by the name of your financial institution or by its website address (url). In the unlikely event you have a financial account that can’t be linked to Personal Capital, you can enter it manually.

So why bother to connect all of your accounts? As you’ll see below, Personal Capital does a lot more than keep an eye on your investments. By connecting all of your financial accounts, you can track your net worth, budget, cash flow and even your bills. And all of this information is pulled together in a Dashboard.

Settings & Profile

Once you’ve linked your accounts, it’s critical that you complete your Settings and Profile. Both can be found by clicking on your name in the top right corner of the screen.

With Settings, you have control over email subscriptions (you can get daily or weekly updates of all your income, spending and investments), whether to include investment income and dividends in cash flow (I do), and any accounts to exclude from the advice Personal Capital offers (I don’t exclude any).

Settings also include important security features. It’s here that you can configure multi-factor authentication (highly recommended) and an alert anytime a login is attempted from a foreign country (also highly recommended).

Personal Capital also shows you a list of the devices you’ve authorized to access your account and when the last sign-on from that device occurred. I’ll often delete old devices I no longer use from this list.

The Profile is where you can set information about you and your spouse, your savings, income sources, and investment objectives. These are important settings that Personal Capital uses in its planning tools, such as its free Retirement Planner.

Dashboard

Once you’ve linked all of your accounts, Personal Capital aggregates it in the Dashboard. The Dashboard gives you a snapshot of your entire financial picture. Here’s what the dashboard looks like:

Personal Capital Dashboard
Personal Capital Dashboard

As you can see, it gives you a snapshot of your net worth, your monthly budget, your cash flow, your investments, and even where you are on your retirement and emergency savings goals.

Net Worth

There’s nothing more important to your financial freedom than racking your net worth. While I’m a big believer in keeping tabs on it in a spreadsheet (which I’ve done for years), I also track it in Personal Capital. If you connect all of your financial accounts, it’s tracked automatically.

Here’s what the Net Worth screen looks like in Personal Capital:

Personal Capital Net Worth
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Personal Capital Banking

I’m surprised at how much I use the banking features of Personal Capital. The primary features that I rely on are the Cash Flow and Budgeting functions. Specifically, the tool shows me how much investment income we generate each month (interest and dividends). The budget tool shows me how much we spent and on what by category.

Cash Flow

Cash flow shows both your income and expenses at a transaction level. Expenses are automatically categorized. You can easily drill down into income or expenses to look at the details.

You can also select which accounts to include in the report. I use this account selection feature to look at just my business expenses (I’ve connected by business checking and credit card accounts). I also use it to look at income just from my investment accounts. This allows me to quickly see all dividends and interest earned in my portfolio.

Personal Capital Cash Flow Calculator

Budgeting

The budgeting feature is not a traditional budgeting app. You can set an overall monthly spending goal, but you can’t set goals by category. If that’s what you need, I highly recommend YNAB (You Need a Budget).

What Personal Capital does well is give you visibility into how you’ve spent your money by category. It automatically imports all spending from each linked account and categorizes the spending. You can customize the categories. I’ve found Personal Capital to do a reasonably good job of getting the categories right, although I do spend about 5 minutes a month correcting some transactions.

Tip: In addition to categories, you can tag transactions, too. I use a limited number of categories, and than tag transactions as needed. For example, we have a home maintenance category. For work on our pool, I tag those transactions as “pool” so I can see how much we spend on the pool without need to create a separate categori.

Bills

The bills feature is another reason to link your credit cards, mortgage, and other loans. Personal Capital keeps track of when bills are due with your linked accounts. This helps you avoid missed or late payments, and it helps with planning throughout the month.

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Personal Capital Investing

Here’s where Personal Capital really shines. Once you’ve connected your retirement and non-retirement accounts, it tracks your investments automatically. It updates prices throughout the trading day and keeps tabs on mutual fund expenses. It also shows you your asset allocation and offers a number of tools to help you evaluate your portfolio

Holdings

You get an overview of each of your holdings. The tool shows the following for each investment you own:

  • The name of each investment
  • Its ticker
  • How many shares you own
  • The current price
  • The days change (in both dollars and as a percentage)
  • The total value

It also gives you an overview of your performance. Here’s mine in the middle of the 2020 bear market (Yikes!):

Personal Capital Portfolio performance Graph

Allocation

Personal Capital also shows you your asset allocation. It automatically evaluates your investments and reports on your stock/bond allocation. For each it breaks down asset classes further, showing U.S. and International stocks and bonds, as well as alternatives.

The tool also provides a useful interactive graphic representation of your portfolio allocation. With the click of a mouse, you can explore what investments make up each of these asset classes. One interesting item is cash. The asset allocation tool not only shows you the cash in say money market accounts, but it also sees the cash held by stock mutual funds.

Tracking Bitcoin & Crypto

In big news for those who invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and other cryptocurrencies, Personal Capital can now track these investments. Best of all, investors do not need to grant access to their crypto wallets or turn over passwords.

Instead, investors can add a manual account in Personal Capital. For each token owned, you simply indicate the symbol, exchange and amount. Personal Capital is now able to track thousands of tokens across hundreds of exchanges.

Personal Capital Planning

So far the dashboard has simply shown you your accounts and investments from various perspectives. It’s the planning tools that really take the tool to the next level.

Retirement Planner

Personal Capital’s retirement planner is both robust and easy to use. Because you’ve connected all of your investment accounts, Personal Capital can use this data to determine your retirement readiness. The screenshot below shows you want the calculator looks like once you’ve linked your accounts.

Personal Capital Retirement Planner

There’s a lot going on here, so let’s break it down:

  • Profile: In the bottom right of the above screenshot is the “Edit Profile” button. It’s here that you can set your marital status, tax filing status, you and your spouse’s name and dates of birth, how much you each earn per year, and any children you have.
  • Assumptions: The “Edit Assumptions” button enables you to set an estimate of your effective tax rate, inflation rate, and your life expectancy.
  • Income Events: You can add ongoing or one-time income events. These may include your yearly savings, a planned sale of a business or other asset, pension income you’ll receive in retirement, and even an estimate of your social security.
  • Spending Goals: Spending goals can include an estimate of your yearly spending in retirement as well as one-time expenses. For example, you could include the cost of a planned vacation in retirement or the cost of a future wedding for your children.
  • Retirement Score: Your retirement score shows a percentage representing the likelihood that your money will last through retirement. According to Personal Capital, a score of 50% to 80% “suggests you are on track, but it is important to understand and acknowledge that the portfolio does deplete in a meaningful amount of the projected scenarios.” A score above 90% means “there is relatively little to worry about and, most likely, you could afford greater spending now or it will be possible to increase spending over time.”
  • Graph Views: The graph above shows the portfolio based on an analysis of thousands of potential market returns. You can also view your accounts by asset location (i.e., Taxable, Tax Deferred and Tax Free.

The Retirement Planner also enables you to create multiple scenarios and then compare them. For example, one scenario may have you retiring at a traditional age, while another one has you retiring early. In one, you may include an estimate of social security, while in another one you exclude it. You could also change the assumptions on one scenario related to your effective tax rate, future inflation, or your life expectancy.

Once you’ve created a new scenario, you can then compare them side-by-side.

Savings Planner

The Savings Planner is three tools in one: Retirement Savings, Emergency Fund Savings, and Debt Paydown. Each enables you to set and track goals.

Personal Capital Savings Planner

Retirement Savings Planner

Here you can set an annual retirement savings goal. The planner tracks your actual savings throughout the year, including your contributions to retirement accounts like 401k and IRAs. It will also track any savings you have in taxable accounts.

Keep in mind that this planner and your Retirement Planner are connected. If you change your savings goal in one, it automatically updates the other.

Emergency Fund Savings Planner

For the Emergency Fund, Personal Capital totals the value of all of your linked bank accounts. It then recommends an Emergency Fund of 3 to 6 months worth of expenses based on the budget amount that you set. As with the retirement planner, any changes in your monthly budgeted amount here automatically updates your Budget in the Banking section of Personal Capital.

Debt Paydown Planner

Any debts, including car loans, mortgages and personal loans, will show up in the Debt Paydown planner. Note that credit card debt will also show up in the planner if there have been at least two interest transactions within the last 90 days. In other words, your credit cards will not show up here if you pay them off in full each month, thereby avoiding interest charges.

The planner will show each debt, along with its interest rate (APR), change in balance year to date, and current balance. It also displays a graph of the changing in debt balances in the current year.

Retirement Fee Analyzer

The retirement fee analyzer is, I must confess, my favorite part of Personal Capital. It’s easy to dismiss relatively “small” investment fees as unimportant. The problem, of course, is the effect fees have on your wealth over decades of time. A 1% advisor or mutual fund fee may seem small, but over time it can literally cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Retirement Fee Analyzer

Personal Capital calculates a weighted average expense ratio for all of your linked accounts. Mine comes in at just 6 basis points–0.06%. That’s well below the average, and yet it will still cost me $17,865 over the next seven years according to the Fee Analyzer!

Fees matter–a lot. This tool by itself makes Personal Capital a must.

Investment Fee Checkup

The investment checkup evaluates your asset allocation and compares it to what Personal Capital recommends. Based on your investment profile, Personal Capital recommends an asset allocation. Here’s what it recommends for me, given my age, years to retirement and risk tolerance:

Personal Capital target asset allocation
Recommended Asset Allocation

My actual allocation has about 5% more bonds than what the above graphic shows. What’s interesting about this tool is that Personal Capital also shows you the historical performance of its recommended portfolio, future projections, risk & return and a comparison with your actual allocation.

If you want to follow the recommendation, Personal Capital provides a listing of those asset classes that need to increased, decreased and by how much.

Personal Capital FAQs

Is Personal Capital safe?

Yes. Personal Capital encrypts data with AES-256 with multi-layer key management, including rotating user-specific keys and salts. Further, no individual at Personal Capital has access to your credentials.
In addition, you must authenticate each device that accesses your account. You’ll receive an automated phone call, email or text message to confirm your identity. You can learn more about Personal Capital’s security here.

Is Personal Capital really free?

Yep. Its investment services are not, but its financial tools are completely free.

Will Personal Capital call me?

Yes. They use the financial dashboard as a marketing tool. I’ve spoken with their advisors in the past, although I’ve never used the investment services. If you don’t want them to call you, just tell them. They honored my request.

Do I have to invest with Personal Capital to use the dashboard?

No.

How much does Personal Capital cost?

The financial dashboard is free. If you do want to use their investment advisory services, the fees start at 0.89% for the first $1 million and go down to 0.49% for amounts over $10 million.

Try Personal Capital

Related: Best Financial Tools & Resources, Best Stock Tracking Apps, Best Quicken Alternatives, Best Mint Alternatives

7 Best Mint Alternatives in 2021 (Free & Paid)

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Mint was one of the first free online budgeting apps when it launched in 2007. Intuit purchased Mint in 2009, and today many users are looking to replace Mint with a different personal finance app. Here are the 7 best Mint alternatives worth considering.

Alternatives to Mint.com

Top Mint.com Alternative Picks

Of all the options out there to replace Mint, three stand out among the rest:

  • Personal Capital–I’ve used Personal Capital for years. It offers the most robust budgeting, cash flow, investment tracking, and financial tools of any app out there. And it’s free.
Try Personal Capital (free)
Read our Personal Capital Review
  • Tiller–For those focused on budgeting (but not investing), Tiller is my favorite budgeting app. It connects your financial accounts (banks, credit cards, and even investments) with Google Sheets. It offers a wealth of tools to analyze everything from your monthly budget to even business expenses.  You can try it free for 30 days, then it’s $79 a year.
Try Tiller (Free Trial)
Read our Tiller Review

YNAB–This is the Mint replacement of choice if you want a powerful budgeting tool but don’t like spreadsheets. I’ve known the founder for about a decade and used the tool for years.

Try YNAB (Free Trial)

Best Alternatives to Mint Budget Tracker

1. Personal Capital–Best Overall Alternative to Mint.com

Personal Capital can easily replace Mint. Like Mint it’s free, and it offers far more tools to keep track of your finances and analyze your investments. You can link just about any financial account to Personal Capital’s app. Once linked, the dashboard gives you a complete snapshot of your money.

Personal Capital Dashboard

Beyond a high level view, Personal Capital offers a number of useful features:

  • Track spending by category or account
  • Plan your retirement with the Retirement Planner
  • Understand how investment fees erode your wealth
  • Monitor your portfolio’s asset allocation
  • Track your net worth
  • Get alerts when bills are due
  • Save for emergencies
  • New: Track Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and thousands of other tokens without giving access to your crypto wallet

I’ve written a detailed review and guide of Personal Capital that you can check out.

2. Tiller Money–Best for those who love spreadsheets

For those focused primarily on budgeting, Tiller Money is the best Mint alternative on our list. Along with Personal Capital, I use Tiller every single day. There is, however, a bit of a learning curve. But once you understand how it works, it’s a breeze to use.

In short, Tiller enables you to connect your bank accounts, credit cards and even investment accounts to a Google Sheet (or Excel). It then gives you templates and tools to do everything from create a budget to track your spending to save for retirement.

TillerMoney - Quicken Alternative

The more I use Tiller the more I appreciate the simplicity and ease of use. If you like spreadsheets, you’ll like Tiller. To get an idea of how it works, check out this video I created.

Some of Tiller’s features include:

  • Track all your accounts in one place
  • Make a budget, track spending
  • Track your net worth with flexible, automated dashboards
  • Create your own category rules so every expense is automatically categorized accurately
  • Use flexible templates for budgeting and retirement planning
  • Works with 2FA (2-Factor Authentication)

You get a 30-day free trial. After that Tiller costs $79 a year.

3. CountAbout–Best for converting data from Mint

If you have a lot of data in Mint, CountAbout may be the budgeting tool for you. It has a feature enabling you to import data from Mint. In fact, you can import your entire Mint history into CountAbout.

CountAbout Quicken alternative

Unlike Mint, CountAbout doesn’t pummel you with advertisements. It does enable you to download transactions from your bank and customize both income and expense categories. You can save receipt images and attach them to the appropriate expense if record keeping is important.

Key features of CountAbout include:

  • Import from Quicken or Mint.com
  • Automate Transaction Downloads
  • Fully customizable income and spending categories and tags
  • Invoicing for small businesses
  • Attachment capability for receipts and images
  • Recurring transactions
  • Graphical and text-based “widgets” provide quick view of financial activity
  • Easy to use on web and iOS/Android apps

For the features you get, the cost is very reasonable. The basic plan costs just $9.99 a year (not a month). If you want automatic downloading of bank transactions, the cost is $39.99 a year.

4. Simplifi–Best budgeting app for smartphones

Simplifi is Quicken’s version of a mobile budgeting app. It’s not a mobile app for Quicken. It’s a new app built from the ground up. It uses automation to help you better manage your money.

For example, Simplifi can create a spending plan for you by analyzing your income and expenses. You can identify recurring expenses and subscriptions, which Simplifi then incorporates into the plan. It also includes a calendar view showing you upcoming expenses.

Key features of Simplifi include:

  • See your banking, credit card, loans and investments all in one place
  • Have your transactions automatically categorized
  • Find and track recurring bills and subscriptions so you can cancel what you no longer use
  • View upcoming bills, income, transfers, and see how they affect your balances
  • Set up custom watchlists and limits by category, payee, or tags to help stay on track
  • Set up savings goals for every milestone you are trying to reach
  • Track refunds on returned items

You can try Simplifi free for 30-days, then the cost is as low as $2.99 a month.

5. You Need a Budget (YNAB)–Best for budgeting

YNAB is ideal for those looking just for a budgeting tool. YNAB’s interface is similar to a spreadsheet. The tool makes it easy to budget by category based on the money you actually have in the bank. It’s not useful as an investment tracking app, however.

YNAB’s key features include:

  • Access to real-time information, from any device, anytime
  • Track goals
  • Excellent charts and graphs

It’s not free, however. You can try it free for 34 days. After that it costs $11.99 a month or $84 a year for the annual plan. The cost is the biggest downside to YNAB.

6. PocketSmith

PocketSmith started out as a calendar to plan upcoming income and expenses. Today, it’s a full-fledged budgeting app. You can sync your accounts with PocketSmith. Once synced, you can track your budget and you’re net worth. You can also see your income and spending in a handy calendar view.

Key features of Pocketsmith include:

  • Manage multiple income streams
  • Forecast your cashflow, including tools to help you reach FIRE (financial independence, retire early)
  • Track Airbnb earnings
  • Create and track savings goals
  • Integrates with Xero
  • Multi-currency

7. Fidelity Full View

Fidelity’s Full View is powered by eMoneyAdvisor, a tool used by financial planners. While Fidelity’s Full View doesn’t come with all of eMoneyAdvisor’s features, it’s still a robust tool, free, and available even if you don’t have an account at Fidelity.

Fidelity Full View

Fidelity Full View includes the following features:

  • Consolidate accounts in one place
  • Track your net worth over time
  • Create and manage a budget
  • View transactions
  • Integrates with Fidelity’s planning tools

Other Mint Replacement Options

I’m regularly evaluating new financial tools. As I do, I’ll add them to this list to help those looking to leave Mint. Here are some of the options I’m evaluating:

  • Every Dollar: The Dave Ramsey budgeting solution. While Dave is popular with those paying off debt, this solution is one of the most expensive and it doesn’t have near the features that a tool like Personal Capital offers.
  • Banktivity: One of the few budgeting apps designed for the Mac, Banktivity is another option. One question to consider though is whether an iOS specific software is necessary today. Everything is online or in an app.
  • Unifimoney: This app is designed for high earning professionals. It combines money management tools with saving, spending and investing services.

Mythodology

My first step in evaluating Mint alternatives was to use dozens of budgeting and investment tracking apps. I’ve used each of the tools in our list extensively, with the exception of Pocketsmith and CountAbout (I’m working on those two now). I’ve also undertaken indepth research into these and more than 25 other options.

In evaluating these apps, I focused on the following key criteria:

  • Cost
  • Ease of use
  • Mobile app availability
  • Ability to consolidate all accounts in one place
  • Budgeting tools
  • Investment tracking tools

Mint Alternatives FAQs

What is the best free alternative to Mint?

Personal Capital is the best free Mint replacement. It comes with nearly every feature Mint offers, and many additional tools. It’s particularly well suited for those who want to manage all of their money in one place, including investments.

What is the best option to migrate Mint data to new app?

If you want to migrate Mint data to a new budgeting app, CountAbout is a solid option. It has features enabling users to migrate data from Mint.

What is the best Mint replacement for calendar budgeting?

PocketSmith is a good choice as it offers a calendar view of your budget.

Which Mint alternatives allow you to schedule bill payments?

With both Tiller Money and YNAB, you can plan future bill payments. Tiller offers a Bill Payment Tracker template and YNAB enables you to allocate funds to bills you plan to pay in the future.

Whatever tool you choose, the key is to pick one that works for you. For me, that’s Personal Capital. One or more of the above Mint alternatives, however, should suit the needs of most looking to better manage their money.

The Paul Merriman Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio

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I first met Paul Merriman back in 2017. He was kind enough to come on my podcast to talk about what he calls the Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio. We’ve kept in touch over the years, and in fact we were just talking about a month ago. In this article we’ll dig into the details of his investing strategy.

Table of contents

Who is Paul Merriman?

Paul Merriman

Paul founded an investment advisory firm back in 1983. He retired in 2012, and in 2013 he started the Merriman Financial Education Foundation where he helps educate investors. He’s also published several books, including his most recent one, We’re Talking Millions!: 12 Simple Ways To Supercharge Your Retirement.

Over the years he’s developed what he calls the Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio. As you’ll see, it consists of 10 stock asset classes, each implemented with a low cost index mutual fund or ETF.

The Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio

Stocks

There are several versions of Paul’s Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio. We’ll spend most of our time looking at the version that has become famous over the years. It consists of the following 10 stock asset classes:

  • S&P 500
  • U.S. Large Cap Value (LCV)
  • U.S. Small Cap Blend (SCB)
  • U.S. Small Cap Value (SCV)
  • Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT)
  • International Large Cap Blend (LCB)
  • International LCV
  • International SCB
  • International SCV
  • Emerging Markets

Paul allocates the equity portion of a portfolio equally across these asset classes. For example, a portfolio of 100% stocks would see 10% allocated to each asset class. An 80/20 portfolio would have 8% allocated to each class, with 20% going to one or more bond funds (we’ll look at examples in a moment, but you can check out Paul’s portfolio implemented as a 80/20 portfolio on M1 Finance.)

Bonds

Merriman recommends three types of bonds for the fixed income portion of his strategy:

  • Intermediate term Treasury bonds (50% of total bonds)
  • Short term Treasury bonds and bills (30%)
  • Short term TIPS (20%)

I agree with much of what he suggests. He’s avoided high-risk bonds such as those issued from emerging market governments or troubled corporations. He’s also kept to a shorter yield curve and added some exposure to inflation protected securities.

If there’s any aspect I might adjust it’s to add more TIPS. If you believe inflation will be higher in the future than the market is predicting, TIPS are a way to place that bet. In contrast, if you think inflation will be lower than expected, Treasury bonds are the answer.

For those like me who have absolutely no idea, you split your bond portfolio equally between the two. That’s exactly what the David Swensen Portfolio does. The only caveat today is that TIPS start with a negative yield, and if you’re like me, that’s a hard pill to swallow. Nevertheless, that’s how I’ve implemented the Ultimate Buy and Hold strategy in M1 Finance.

How the Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio is Different

There are several aspects to note about Merriman’s investing strategy:

International Exposure: The portfolio allocates a full 50% of equities to international funds. This is unique among the portfolio’s I’ve evaluated. Most are less than 50%. The Warren Buffett Portfolio doesn’t allocate anything directly to international stocks. And Vanguard’s founder, Jack Bogle, saw no need to own international stocks.

I personally think international exposure is important. My portfolio allocates about 30% to global funds.

Small Cap Exposure: The Ultimate Buy & Hold portfolio allocates 20% to small cap stocks. It does so because history tells us that small cap companies out perform large cap companies over the long term. Over the past 50 years, small cap has outperformed large cap by more than 1%. A $10,000 investment beginning in 1972 would grow to more than $2.7 million if invested in small companies, compared to $1.5 million in large companies.

Source: Portfolio Visualizer

Value Exposure: Finally, Merriman’s strategy favors value investments over growth. Again, history tells the story. Although growth stocks have outperformed value recently, over the last 100 years, value has performed better in both large and small companies.

Historical Performance of the Ultimate Buy and Hold Strategy

The big question is how Merriman’s Ultimate Buy and Hold portfolio has performed. As you can see in the chart below (click the image to enlarge it), the portfolio has trounced the S&P 500 over the last 50 years.

The portfolio has returned 12.4% annually compared to 10.7% for the S&P 500. Note, however, that it comes with more risk. The standard deviation of Merriman’s portfolio, when rebalanced annually, weighs in at 18.5%, compared to 16.9% for the S&P 500. In other words, if you can handle the volatility, Merriman’s portfolio may be a sound option. Note too that by rebalancing monthly, you decrease both the returns and volatility.

Before we leave the performance of this investing strategy, it’s worth looking at how well it’s done over the last decade. As you can see, the portfolio has lagged the S&P 500 since 2010:

Source: Portfolio Visualizer

Why? Over the last decade large companies have outperformed small companies, growth companies have outperformed value companies, and U.S. companies have outperformed international companies. In other words, in just about every way that the Buy and Hold portfolio overweights has seen underperformance.

Much of this is the result of a low inflation, and easy money policy of the Fed and federal government. Massive borrowing and spending has sent asset prices soaring, which favors larger growth companies.

I don’t believe this undermines Merriman’s portfolio. The U.S. can’t borrow to infinity. But it does underscore that any investment strategy can lag the market for extended periods of time.

Building the UB&H Strategy

There are a number of ways to construct the Ultimate Buy & Hold Strategy. I’ve built one approach in M1 Finance using low cost index ETFs:

Keep a few things in mind. First, the above portfolio is 80% stocks and 20% bonds. One can easily change this to whatever stock/bond allocation is best to meet their investment goals.

Second, some of the chosen ETFs cover more than one asset class. For example, Vanguard’s small-cap ETF (ticker: VB) includes mid-cap companies. I think this is a perfectly reasonable approach to the UB&H strategy, but one could easily substitute a micro-cap ETF (e.g, iShares Micro-Cap ETF IWC).

Here’s what the asset allocation looks like in Personal Capital:

Finally, M1 Finance is ideal for this portfolio as it makes rebalancing easy. With M1, you can rebalance a portfolio with the click of a button.

The Simplified Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio Alternative

Paul Merriman and his team have released simplified versions of the UB&H portfolio. These are ideal for those who don’t want to juggle 10 stock asset classes! He has both a 4-fund and a 2-fund solution.

Source: https://paulmerriman.com/4-fund-combo-latest-recommendations/

4-Fund Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio

The Merriman 4-Fund Portfolio (see it here at M1 Finance) consists of the following four asset classes:

  • LCB (S&P 500)
  • LCV
  • SCB
  • SCV

This portfolio’s performance is similar to the 10-fund portfolio. It has averaged 13.8% over rolling 15-year periods since 1928. The S&P 500 has averaged just 11.0%.

2-Fund Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio

The 2-fund solution has performed even better. Its average performance over rolling 15-year periods is an amazing 14.5%. Here, however, some cautionary words.

The 2-fund portfolio bets everything on value investing. The two asset classes are SCV and LCV. In the short to medium term, this portfolio could significantly underperform the market, such as what the 3-fund portfolio seeks to replicate.

Final Thoughts

The 10-fund Ultimate Buy & Hold portfolio is an excellent way to potentially outperform the market without sacrificing diversification. It does, however, represent a more volatile approach to investing. Therefore, it’s not for everyone. At the same time, one can modify the portfolio to better suit individual approaches to investing.

My Research for this Article

Ray Dalio All Weather Portfolio

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The Ray Dalio All Weather Portfolio is designed to perform well in any economic cycle. Using risk parity to match asset classes to economic risk, the portfolio promises to perform well in any market with less volatility than traditional asset allocation models. In this article, we’ll examine the portfolio to see if it should be part of our investment strategy.

Ray Dalio All Weather Portfolio

Resources and Tools Mentioned in this Article:

Table of contents

Who is Ray Dalio?

Ray Dalio is a billionaire investor and hedge fund manager. Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates in 1975 and built it into the largest hedge fund in the world with $140 billion in assets under management. He is the author of Principles: Life and Work (2017). 

Dalio is a student of economic cycles. He recently produced a video describing how economic cycles work:

It’s his view on economic cycles that informs his All Weather Portfolio.

The Ray Dalio All Weather Portfolio

The Bridgewater Associates All Weather Fund

The All Weather portfolio dates back to 1996. It was the product of analysis by Bridgewater’s Bob Prince and Ray Dalio, among others. What they found is the economic cycles revolve around two things: Inflation/deflation and growth/contraction.

Source: https://www.bridgewater.com/research-and-insights/the-all-weather-story

As growth and inflation rise and fall, different asset classes either rise and fall. The goal of the All Weather portfolio was to gain exposure in roughly equal percentages of the various asset classes that perform well in each quadrant. At Bridgewater, the result was the following:

  • EM Credit: Emerging Market Debt
  • IL Bonds: Inflation-linked bonds (Tips, I Bonds)
  • Nominal Bonds: Bonds not linked to inflation (e.g., Treasury bonds)

Unlike a traditional asset allocation, the All Weather portfolio allocates just 25% or thereabouts to equities. The rest of the portfolio goes to various bonds and commodities, including gold. In this regard, in stands in sharp contrast to the 3-Fund Portfolio and the Warren Buffett Portfolio.

The above portfolio at Bridewater was available to corporate clients and pension funds. It was not available to the average investor, until recently.

The All Weather Portfolio

In 2016 Tony Robbins published Money Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom. For the book Robbins interviewed Dalio, who outlined the All Weather Portfolio in a way that average investors could mimic.

The portfolio consisted of the following asset classes:

  • 30% Stocks
  • 40% Long-Term Bonds
  • 15% Intermediate-Term Bonds
  • 7.5% Gold
  • 7.5% Commodities

According to Tony Robbins, here are the performance metrics for the portfolio from 1984 to 2013:

  • 9.7% annual returns
  • You would have made money 86% of the time
  • Average loss of just 1.9%
  • Worst loss was -3.9%
  • Volatility of 7.6%

The returns are remarkable given a volatility (standard deviation) of just 7.6%. By way of comparison, the S&P 500 has a standard deviation of more than 15%.

One way to implement this portfolio is to use the following ETFs:

  • VTI    30%
  • VGLT 40%
  • USCI  7.5%
  • GLD   7.5%
  • BIV     15%

I’ve created this portfolio in M1 Finance which you can check out here.

As noted earlier, this portfolio’s asset allocation is anything but traditional. Here’s a view of the allocation using Personal Capital’s Asset Allocation Tool:

Ray Dalio Portfolio Asset Allocation
Read my Personal Capital Review for more details on this free investment tracking app.

Backtesting of this portfolio is limited due to the commodities ETF. Still, we can see that it performed reasonably well since 2011 as compared to the Bogleheads 3-Fund Portfolio (80/20 allocation):

Note that it was neck-in-neck with the 3-fund portfolio until the recent post-Covid shock bull market. What’s noteworthy is that the Dalio portfolio’s standard deviation is just 6.23%, compared to 11.05% for the 3-fund portfolio. This in turn explains in part a Sharpe Ratio and Sortino Ratio much higher than the 3-fund portfolio.

In other words, the Ray Dalio portfolio performed better than the 3-fund portfolio on a risk-adjusted basis. At the same time, one can’t ignore that the 3-fund portfolio outperformed.

Long-term Bond Exposure

It’s hard to ignore the portfolio’s exposure to long bonds (and even intermediate term bonds) given current interest rates. If you believe that rates will rise, parking 40% of a portfolio in long-term bonds could be a recipe for disaster. Even Ray Dalio today questions why anybody would own bonds.

In his recent article, Why in the World Would You Own Bonds When…, Mr. Dalio described the economics of investing in bonds as stupid:

The economics of investing in bonds (and most financial assets) has become stupid.

He went on to explain why he believes bonds are in a bubble:

…If bond prices fall significantly that will produce significant losses for holders of them, which could encourage more selling. Bonds have been in a 40-year bull market that has rewarded those who were long and penalized those who were short, so the bull market has produced a large number of comfortable longs who haven’t gotten seriously stung by a price decline. That is one of the markers of a bubble.

Beyond the end of the 40-year bull run in bonds, Dalio goes so far as to say shorting bonds is a “relatively low-risk bet.”

If Dalio is right, and I believe he is, it calls into question the sustainability of the All Weather portfolio. Keep in mind that he recommended it to Tony Robbins in 2016. A lot has changed in the last five years.

2x Leveraged Ray Dalio Portfolio

It is worth asking whether it makes sense to used leveraged ETFs with the All Weather Portfolio. While I’m generally opposed to such measures, it’s common in risk parity portfolios to see leverage deployed to offset the low risk (i.e., low volatility) that these portfolios generate. The idea is to bring the volatility of the portfolio back in line with traditional asset allocation models, while enjoying slightly higher returns.

Creating the portfolio is easy in M1 Finance using ProShares ETFs. Here’s what it looks like:

2x Ray Dalio Leveraged All Weather Portfolio
Check out the portfolio at M1 Finance

Examining this portfolio in Portfolio Visualizer led to some interesting results. What follows is a comparison of this portfolio, the standard All Weather Portfolio, and a 3-fund portfolio using an 80/20 allocation:

It’s not surprising that the leveraged portfolio (Portfolio #1) outperformed the unlevered portfolio (Portfolio #2). What is more interesting is that it trounced the 3-fund portfolio (Portfolio #3) on both a total return basis and a risk adjusted basis (see both the Sharpe and Sortino ratios).

Pros & Cons of the Ray Dalio All Weather Portfolio

In the final analysis, the Rad Dalio All Weather Portfolio has several pros and cons:

Pros

  • Easy to implement with ETFs
  • Volatility lower than a “traditional” portfolio
  • Sharpe and Sortino ratios higher than a “traditional” portfolio

Cons

  • May underperform a 3-fund portfolio unless leverage is used
  • 50%+ allocation to intermediate and long-term bonds not ideal in current interest rate environment
  • Exposure to commodities and gold can underperform for long periods of time.

11 Best Quicken Alternatives in 2021 (#1 is Free)

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Quicken was once the go-to budgeting tool. I used it when it was first released in the 1980s. Today, it’s been eclipsed by apps that enable you to manage every aspect of your finances, often for free. Here are the best Quicken alternatives to consider in 2021.

Quicken alternatives
Options to replace Quicken

Editor’s Top Picks

Of all the options out there to replace Quicken (and Mint for that matter), three stand out among the rest:

  1. Personal Capital–It’s both free and comes with the a robust set of features unmatched by other alternatives. It easily handles budgeting, net worth, cash flow, retirement investments and taxable investments. It also comes with excellent tools, including a retirement calculator, investment fee analyzer and investment portfolio analyzer. Personal Capital can now even track Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and thousands of other tokens. It’s the tool I use every day.
  2. Tiller–If you are a diehard spreadsheet fanatic, Tiller is the answer. It integrates with Google Sheets and can connect your bank accounts and credit cards. It also offers daily email updates to track your spending. You can try it free for 30 days, then it’s $79 a year.
  3. YNAB (You Need a Budget): For those who want to focus exclusively on budgeting (no investments), then YNAB is an ideal choice. It does budgeting as well as any app available today, and its community is second to none.

Alternatives to Quicken

Top Quicken Alternatives

1. Personal Capital–Editor’s Choice

Personal Capital is the clear winner when it comes to finding a substitute for Quicken. It’s free and it offers tools to manage every aspect of your finances. With Personal Capital, you can link just about every financial account you have–checking, savings, credit cards, retirement accounts, investments accounts, HSAs, and even your home (via Zillow).

Personal Capital Cash Flow

Once linked, Personal Capital’s financial dashboard offers valuable insights into your finances. As an example, the tool enables you to–

  • Track your spending by category
  • Estimate when you can retire
  • Calculate the cost of your investments
  • Display the asset allocation of your portfolio
  • Generate a net worth statement
  • Get alerts when bills are due
  • Evaluate your investment portfolio
  • Save for emergencies
  • New: Track Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and thousands of other tokens without giving access to your crypto wallet.

I’ve used Personal Capital for years. It’s the only option that in my opinion can handle every aspect of my finances, from budgeting to investing to retirement planning.

Try Personal Capital

I’ve written a detailed review and guide of Personal Capital that you can check out.

2. Tiller Money–Best Spreadsheet Budget

I don’t know how they do it, but Tiller Money has figured out how to turn a Google Sheet into a dynamic budgeting tool. You link your bank accounts and credit cards to Tiller’s Google Sheet tool, and it automatically downloads all of your transactions. From there you can create budgets, categorize spending and generate reports.

TillerMoney - Quicken Alternative

I’ve been using Tiller for several months for both my personal budget and my small business budget. It’s clear that Tiller is ideal for those who love working with spreadsheets. I will caution you that setting up Tiller can be a bit intimidating. The good news is that they have videos to walk you through each step. If I can do it, you can do it.

One thing to keep in mind is that you must manually categorize each transaction. For some, this is a show-stopper. They want the convenience of tools like Personal Capital that automate this process. For others, they would prefer to categorize transactions themselves. It forces them to look at each entry, understand how they spent money, and then properly categorize the expense.

There is no right or wrong here. It comes down to preference. You get a 30-day free trial. After that Tiller costs $79 a year.

3. You Need a Budget (YNAB)–Best for Budgeting

YNAB is ideal for those looking just for a budgeting tool. In my view, there is no better app when it comes to creating a budget. YNAB’s interface is similar to a spreadsheet. The tool makes it easy to budget by category based on the money you actually have in the bank.

YNAB budgeting alternative to Quicken

One of YNAB’s core principles is to give every dollar a job. You do that by deciding how you’ll spend every dollar that enters your checking account. As with other tools, you can connect your bank accounts and credit cards to YNAB. This allows for real-time updates so that you can track your spending throughout the month.

YNAB doesn’t have the rich feature set offered by Personal Capital. That’s particularly clear when it comes to investing. For those who don’t want to track investments, however, YNAB is a good option.

It’s not free, however. You can try it free for 34 days. After that it costs $11.99 a month or $84 a year for the annual plan. The cost is the biggest downside to YNAB.

4. PocketSmith–Best for Calendar Budgeting

PocketSmith started out as a calendar to plan upcoming income and expenses. Today, it’s a full-fledged budgeting app. You can synch your accounts with PocketSmith. Once synced, you can track your budget and you’re net worth. You can also see your income and spending in a handy calendar view.

PocketSmith

One stand-out feature is PocketSmith’s auto-budget tool. It can create a budget for you based on past spending. It also has a cash flow feature that maps income and spending by date range.

While there is a free version of PocketSmith, it requires manual data entry. To get automatic bank fees, you’ll need to pay at least $9.95 a month, or $7.50 a month when paid annually.

5. CountAbout–Imports from Quicken or Mint

If you have a lot of data in Quicken (or Mint), CountAbout may be the budgeting tool for you. It has a feature enabling you to import data from Quicken or Mint.

CountAbout Quicken alternative

CountAbout enables you to download transactions from your bank and customize both income and expense categories. You can even attach receipt images to expense transactions. You can set up recurring transactions and generate financial reports.

For the features you get, the cost is very reasonable. The basic plan costs just $9.99 a year (not a month). If you want automatic downloading of bank transactions, the cost is $39.99 a year.

6. Moneydance–Traditional Budgeting Software

With so many apps going online, Moneydance takes a different approach. You download Moneydance software rather than use it online. Once downloaded, the software works much like you would expect.

You can download banking transactions into the software and initiate bill pay. The software automatically categorizes expenses based on how you categorize them. In other words, it learns from your use of the program.

Moneydance Quicken alternative

It offers a dashboard (shown above) that summarizes your finances all in one place. It can also generate reports and graphs to give you a visual perspective of your money. It comes with a mobile app, can track your finances, and can alert you when bills are due.

It costs $49.99 and is available for both Mac and Windows.

7. EveryDollar (now Ramsey+)–Best for Dave Ramsey Fans

For those Dave Ramsey founds out there, EveryDollar may be a good substitute for Intuit’s Quicken. Now the first thing to point out is that EveryDollar ain’t cheap. After a 14-day trial, you’ll pay $129.99 a year. If you want to try it for just 3 months, it will cost $59.99. For this reason, it’s not high on my list. Still, I know that some folks are passionate about Financial Peace University.

You can sync your bank accounts with the tool, set up budgets, and track spending. The budgeting app works on both computers, smartphones and tablets. It also comes with Dave’s educational materials, enabling you to take online course and join virtual groups.

8. Banktivity–Designed for Macs Only

Banktivity is the budgeting app specifically designed for Macs. It offers features that enable you to organize and track all of your finances. You can group accounts and reports, and organize the dashboard in a way that works best for you.

Banktivity

Banktivity enables you to follow an envelope budget. This can be ideal for those living paycheck-to-paycheck.

You can import transactions from your bank and sync data across all of your Mac devices. Banktivity also tracks investments and offers account-level reporting. You can try Banktivity for free for 30 days. After that they offer three plans ranging in price from $4.16 to $8.33 a month (billed annually).

9. GnuCash–Best for Small Businesses

For those who tracked business income and expenses with Quicken and a reluctant to move up to Quickbooks, GnuCash may be the answer. It uses double-entry accounting, ideal for businesses and accounting nerds, like me. It tracks investments, schedules transactions, and generates reports and graphs.

GnuCash

10. Mint–Best Mobile App

I used Mint when it first came out more than a decade ago. Today, many are looking for Mint alternatives, including several of the apps listed here. Still, Mint is a worth consideration if you are replacing Intuit’s Quicken. It’s free, for starters. It’s easy to link your accounts and track your spending. It includes a budget planner and credit score tracker. Of course, there are great Mint alternatives as well.

Mint.com

11. GoodBudget–Best for Envelope Budgeting

I’m old enough to remember the envelope method of budgeting. My mom used it. When the money in the grocery envelope ran out, we stopped going to the grocery story until payday (seriously). Today, the envelope budget is still a smart way to manage money for those living paycheck-to-paycheck. If you want a digital version of the time-tested budgeting system, give GoodBudget a try.

Goodudget

Goodudget is an app based on the envelope system. You can sync and share your budget, and set goals to save for big purchases. It also has tools that let you track and payoff your debt.

Quicken Alternatives FAQs

What is the best free alternative to Quicken?

Personal Capital is the best free Quicken replacement. It comes with nearly every feature Quicken offers, and money additional tools. It’s particularly well suited for those who want to manage all of their money in one place, including investments.

Is Quicken available without a subscription?

Sadly, no. Like so many other software packages and apps, Quicken is now only available as a subscription.

What is the best option to migrate Quicken data to new app?

If you want to migrate Quicken data to a new budgeting app, CountAbout is a solid option. It has features enabling users to migrate data from Quicken or Mint.

What is the best Quicken replacement for calendar budgeting?

PocketSmith is a good choice as it offers a calendar view of your budget.

Which Quicken alternatives allow you to schedule bill payments?

With both Tiller Money and YNAB, you can plan future bill payments. Tiller offers a Bill Payment Tracker template and YNAB enables you to allocate funds to bills you plan to pay in the future.

Whatever tool you choose, the key is to pick one that works for you. For me, that’s Personal Capital. One or more of the above Quicken alternatives, however, should suit the needs of most looking to better manage their money.

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