Personal Finance

Mint was one of the first free online budgeting apps when it launched in 2007. I used it when it was first released. Intuit purchased Mint in 2009, and today many users are looking to replace Mint with a different personal finance app. Here are the 8 best Mint alternatives worth considering.

Top Mint.com Alternative Picks

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

1. Personal Capital–Now called the Empower Personal Dashboard (Empower bought Personal Capital some time ago) 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. It also includes excellent iOS and Android apps. In fact, I use it more on my iPad than I do on the website. And it's free.

2. Tiller–For those focused on budgeting (but not investing), Tiller is my favorite budgeting app and one I use in addition to Personal Capital. It connects your financial accounts (banks, credit cards, and even investments) with Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. 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.

3. Monarch Money–This is an excellent alternative if you manage money as a couple or don't like spreadsheets. It offers a mobile app and the ability to connect all of your accounts in one place. I've personally tested Monarch and found it very easy to use.

Best Alternatives to Mint Budget Tracker

1. Personal Capital (Empower)–Best Overall Alternative to Mint.com

Founded in 2009, Personal Capital recently rebranded as Empower. I've used it for more than a decade, and it 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 Empower's app. Once linked, the dashboard gives you a complete snapshot of your money.

Beyond a high level view, Empower 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

Empower also offers an app for tablets and smartphones. I use it on both an iPad and iPhone. The user interface is exceptional and the app is easy to use. This makes Empower an excellent alternative to the Mint app.

I’ve written a detailed review and guide of Empower 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 for those who enjoy working with spreadsheets. Along with Empower, 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. I use the Google Sheet version. It then gives you templates and tools to do everything from create a budget to track your spending to save for retirement.

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)

The one potential drawback of Tiller is using it on a smartphone. Google Sheets does have an app for both tablets and smartphones. I've used Tiller and Google Sheets on my iPad, and it works well. On a smartphone, however, it's very difficult to navigate.

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

3. Monarch Money–Best for Couples

While we don't track our finances with Monarch, I've used it for more than a year on a test basis. It's an excellent alternative to Mint for several reasons.

First, its user interface is beautiful and informative. The dashboard gives you quick access to your most important budget details. These details include recent transactions, a comparison of income and expenses for the current month, and your net worth. If you track goals, such as saving for emergencies, the dashboard shows your progress.

Linking bank accounts and credit cards is easy. And once linked, Monarch pulls your transaction and balance data into the app. From here it's easy to create budgets and goals. You can also track your recurring expenses, ideal for keeping an eye on subscriptions and to avoid any surprises.

Monarch also offers a tablet and smartphone app. I've used it on both my iPad and iPhone and found it to be very easy to use.

You can try Monarch Money for free for seven days. After that, the cost is as low as $8.33 per month.

4. 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.

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.

5. 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 $3.99 a month.

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

YNAB is ideal for those looking just for a simple 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 $14.99 a month or $99 a year for the annual plan. The cost is the biggest downside to YNAB.

7. 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

8. 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 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.

Why Switch from Mint?

Mint continues to offer a free, solid budgeting app. There are, however, several reasons to consider an alternative.

The first is its limited investing tools. While you can track your investments in Mint, the many of the options here offer far better investing tools. Personal Capital, for example, shows a portfolio's asset allocation, investment fees, and retirement readiness.

Second, Mint uses an advertising revenue model. The result is a user experience plastered with ads.

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

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

Albert Einstein purportedly said “compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it.” The question is how do we understand it? We can start by running 7 calculations that demonstrate the power compounding.

What is Compound Interest?

Compounding occurs when investments grow in value based on their original investment and any interest, dividends or other earnings they’ve generated. For example, savings accounts typically pay interest on balances each month. If the starting balance is $1,000 and the first interest payment is $10, the next month’s interest payment will be made on the new balance of $1,010. This repeats indefinitely. Stocks and bonds take advantage of this favorable math, too.

Compounding starts off slow. Even after a few years of saving and investing, most of the balance comes from the money you’ve saved, not compounding. Give it some time, however, and compounding will generate far more in wealth than the actual dollars saved. Here are 7 calculations that demonstrate this power.

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7 Compound Interest Calculations

For these calculations we’ll use  a compound interest tool I created in Excel that you are welcome to use. For these calculations we’ll assume the following:

• We earn $50,000 a year for our entire working life. A generous salary for a 20-year-old but it evens out since their salary is remaining constant for decades.
• Our savings rate will also stay constant at 5 percent. That works out to $208.33 in monthly investable savings.
• We save for 45 years, a typical working career.

Now if we saved this money but never invested it, we’d end up with a total retirement fund of $112,500. That’s only $4,500 in yearly retirement income assuming a 4 percent withdrawal rate. Not exactly living high on the hog. The following 7 calculations will make this story more encouraging.  

Calculation One: We earn a 9.8% return

The only variable we’re going to change for the first calculation is the rate of return on our savings. Instead of zero percent appreciation, we’re going to assume a 9.8% compounding return on their money. Why 9.8 percent? Vanguard studied market data from 1926-2020 and found that a portfolio of 80 percent stocks and 20 percent bonds returned an annualized 9.8 percent. The best way to achieve the kinds of returns Vanguard studied is to invest in low-cost index funds. A 3-fund portfolio is one approach.

Hitting enter on the tool shows that investing the same savings from the control example yields an end balance of $2,035,947. A healthy return considering monthly contributions can be completely automated through brokerages like M1 Finance. The real work is in diligently saving and patiently waiting for compound interest to do the rest.

Calculation Two: We save for 44 years instead of 45

What happens if we change the time horizon for retirement? Changing the contribution timeline from 45 years to 44 years might have a larger impact than you might think. 

Instead of an ending balance of $2,035,947 we get $1,844,252. That’s a difference of $191,695. So shaving even one year off of an investing time horizon can cut out exponential gains. How should this realization fit into financial planning?

Some personalities in the investing space advocate paying off all debt before investing, even considering the boost tax-deferred accounts and company matches give. The math behind compound interest makes that advice seem rather tenuous.

Calculation Three: Invest for 38 years instead of 45

Let’s assume a scenario in which our worker pours all their investable savings into paying down low-interest student loan debt before investing. If it takes them 7 years to pay off their school loans, it cuts their investing timeline down to 38 years instead of 45 years.

The loss of those seven years cost them more than $1 million in lost wealth.

Calculation Four: We earn 9.7% instead of 9.8%

If time horizon is so important, how important are fees? If we reduce our expected returns by subtracting just 10 basis points (0.10%) in fees from the yearly return expectation, we can see just how important fees are.

Almost $70,000 less for retirement. There’s no way of telling what the market will return over the next 45 years. On the other hand, we can choose exactly what amount of fees we pay. And that brings us to the next calculation.

Calculation Five: We earn 8.8% instead of 9.8%

One-tenth of one percent in fees docked us $70,000. Now let’s assume our worker pays the market rate for a fiduciary. Fiduciaries typically charge one percent of a portfolio’s value for their services. That brings our expected return down from 9.8 percent to 8.8 percent.

It turns out that one percent in fees equates to almost $600,000 in lost retirement assets. That’s a big price to pay for peace of mind and a strong case for DIY investing.

You can use the free tools offered by Personal Capital to determine what fees you are paying on your investments and how those fees will affect your wealth over time.

Calculation Six: We get a 3% company match

We’ve explored the role expected returns have on compounding. Savings rate plays a large role as well. Let’s assume that an employer agrees to match 3%of our worker’s annual salary. That bumps up the savings rate from 5%to 8%. The monthly contribution jumps from $208.33 to $333.33. $125 more going into the market every month. 

Best of all, that extra $125 is essentially free money, with no additional sacrifice needed. Saving that extra 3%could require noticeable belt-tightening without the aid of an employer match.

The employer match changes a $2,035,947 retirement nest egg into $3,257,515. That’s an increase of $1,221,568 and more math to support taking advantage of employer contribution matches even if low-interest debt could be paid off instead. 

Calculation Seven: Saving early versus saving late

Let’s put it all together and find out where exactly the awesome power of compounding interest is. Cutting the investing window down to 10 years yields a $42,191 portfolio. That’s only a $17,191 return on $25,000 invested. Investor.gov provides a calculator that shows the tight grouping of invested money and total portfolio value in the early decades of investing.

Let’s assume that after reaching 10 years of contributions, our worker stops adding to their portfolio. The $42,191 continues to grow for another 35 years without being touched. Compounding alone carries the portfolio to a value of $1,284,684, all from just $25,000 in invested savings.

Contrasting that happy scenario with a different approach should be telling. In our second example, let’s say our worker waited 10 years to start investing. That cuts their investing window down to 35 years instead of 45 years. But we’ll assume they save and invest for the remaining 35 years. 

Their contributions over those years add up to $87,500. That’s $62,500 more savings invested than our first example. However, their portfolio only reaches a value of $751,263. Over $500,000 less than our start early, set-it-and-forget friend.

Final Thoughts

We managed to avoid any theoretical physics thankfully. All the compound interest insights we needed were from some basic arithmetic. Compound interest is a powerful force so it’s best to work with it rather than without it. To best capture its potential, investors should take care to make a few key choices.

For starters, invest. Money can’t compound if nothing is being reinvested over time. Second, start early. Gains grow exponentially. The latter years of investment gains will far exceed whatever principle was contributed in early years. 

Third, consider contributing to retirement even while carrying low-interest debt. Being debt-free might seem psychologically appealing, but the math behind compounding begs that we invest early and often. Fourth, fees can stunt returns. Be wary of investing in funds or with advisors that charge fees well beyond what you would pay by investing in low-cost index funds. 

Fifth, take advantage of employer matching programs. More money being contributed is more money to be compounded. Finally, money investing in your twenties is markedly more valuable than money investing in later decades. But, as they say, the best time to invest was twenty years ago, the second-best time is now.

Your net worth, more than any other financial metric, gives you a window into your financial health. In one number you see the affects of every financial decision you've ever made. Here's why its so important and how to track your net worth for free.

I'm going to make a bold and controversial claim about net worth. Here goes. A person's net worth is the single most important financial metric they can track. It's more important than their income, savings rate, or monthly budget. Our net worth reflects every single financial transaction we've ever had. It reflects the dollar we spent on a candy bar when we were 15 and the first car we bought when we were 18.

You may have countless financial goals. You may want to get out of debt, save for child's education, pay off student loans, buy a house, buy a car, increase your emergency fund and save for retirement. These are all important goals and worth tracking. The ultimate measure of how we handle money, however, is our net worth. All the other goals are lack stats in a a football game–rushing yards, quarterback rating, sacks. Our net worth is the score at the end of the game.

Here's everything you need to know about net worth and how and why to track it.

What is a Net Worth Statement

A net worth statement, also called a balance sheet, is a reflection of everything that you own (assets) and everything that you owe (debts or liabilities). Your assets minus your liabilities equals your net worth. Here's an example of a net worth statement:

Hopefully our we have more assets than liabilities, in which case we have a net worth. For some of us that might not be the case. When I graduated from law school in 1992, my wife and I had a negative net worth of about $55,0000, thanks to student loans.

Net Worth Statement vs a Budget

Now one question we want to consider is the difference between our net worth and our monthly budget. At one one level, the difference is obvious.

A budget shows how much we make and how much we spend. You can imagine that at the top of our budget is our monthly income, and below that are our monthly expenses organized by category. And that's, of course, very different than our net worth statement, which shows what we own and what we owe. But when we dig a little deeper, we can see two more fundamental differences.

Time Period

The first is that a budget covers a period of time. We think of our monthly budget or perhaps a yearly budget. Either way, our budget covers a period of time. In contrast, a balance sheet is a snapshot in time. For example, we update our net worth statement at the end of every year. As a result, our net worth statement is as of 12/31 of each year.

You can think of a budget as a video over a period of time, while your net worth is a snapshot.

Transactions that Affect our Net Worth and Budget

The second difference, and this is I think even more important, is that the way we earn and spend money affects our net worth and budget in different ways. Here's the key thing to remember– every single thing we do with money, every transaction, we engage in, whether we're buying tickets to go to the movies or we're paying down our credit card, affects our net worth. On the other hand, not every single thing we do actually affects our budget.

Getting paid

For example, let's imagine we get paid $2,500 after taxes on payday. How would that payment affect our financial statements? Well, the $2,500 would be added to our budget as income. It would also be added to our net worth as an asset. In that example, the transaction affected both our net worth and our budget. It also increased our net worth by $2,500.

Paying off a credit card

Recall that earlier I noted that every transaction affects your net worth, but not every transaction affects your budget (income and expenses). Let's look at an example of that now. Let's imagine that a week ago, we charged an Xbox series X console (if we could find one) to a credit card. After getting paid, we decide we're going to pay it off to avoid any interest charges. How would paying our credit card off affect our financial statements?

Well, we would decrease our cash by $500. At the same time, however, we are going to decrease a liability (our credit card debt) by the same $500. This is a perfect example of a transaction that had absolutely no impact on our budget. We simply transferred $500 from one account (our checking account) to another (our credit card account).

This may seem counterintuitive. After all, we did spend $500 to buy an Xbox. These expense occurred when we charged the Xbox to our credit card. At that point the purchase would have shown up on our budget, perhaps under the entertainment category. But when we paid the credit card bill off, that transaction had no affect on our budget.

What to Include in Your Net Worth

What should we include in our net worth? Here I use two rules that apply to just about every situation.

Rule #1: Include all liabilities

Rule number one is that you include every single debt that you have. This would include credit cards, student loans, a mortgage, or even a personal loan that you owe to a friend or family member. Every liability gets included in your net worth statement.

Rule # 2: Include Cash and Assets that Go Up in Value Over Time

With assets, you include cash and every asset that over time you expect to go up in value. Some examples of asset to include on your net worth calculation:

• Primary residence
• Other real estate
• Retirement accounts (e.g., 401(k), IRA)
• Taxable investment accounts
• Collectibles
• Ownership in a business

At the same time, Rule #2 means you're going to exclude some things that may be surprising to some. For example, I do not include our cars in our net worth statement. Yes, they have value. Yes, if we were doing a complete net worth statement for a bank loan, we would include the cars. But I don't include them because over time they depreciate, and eventually, we go out and spend more money to buy another car.

We also don't include personal property, such as clothes or furniture.

How to Track Your Net Worth for Free

We track our net worth in two ways–using a Google Sheet and using Personal Capital.

Google Sheets

Google Sheets is an easy way to track your net worth for free. It does require manual entry of asset and liability values. We update our net worth at the end of every year, and the process takes just a few minutes. By tracking our net worth in this fashion, I'm able to see the progress we've made going back to 2007.

If you'd like a template, check out this Excel template from Money Under 30. You can easily export it to Google Sheets if you prefer.

Personal Capital

The other thing I do is use Personal Capital (now called Empower). Once you connect all of your financial accounts, Personal Capital automatically tracks and updates your net worth on a daily basis. It couldn't be any easier. And it's free.

The Awesome Value of a Money-Making Net Worth Statement

I like to look at all of our assets that are generating income or profit for me. It could be in the form of a dividend, interest, or increased market value. When viewed this way, we see a clear difference between owning shares of an S&P 500 index fund and owning a car. The car generates nothing but more expenses. The index fund generates dividends and capital gains.

Here's where the real power of a money-making net worth statement comes into play. When you start out, all of your income comes from work. That's all you have, if you're like we were at of law school. We didn't have two dimes to rub together.

As you spend less than you make and invest the rest, however, this begins to change. Over time, the income-producing assets on your balance sheet begin to compound. Fast forward a few decades (yes, this takes time), and your assets will generate more income than your day job. They call that financial freedom.

What is a Good Net Worth

People want to know where their net worth stands compared to others. While we shouldn't focus too much on how other people are doing, it can be a motivated to do smarter things with your money.

According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth in 2019 was $121,700. By itself, this number is not very helpful. We can, however, look at net worth by age and income.

By Age and Income

Here are the median and mean net worth by age and income according to the Fed (in thousands):

Net Worth Ratios

While the Fed's data are interesting, there's an even more useful way to think about net worth–as a ratio based on age and income. In 2010, a lawyer by the name of Charles Farrell published, Your Money Ratios: 8 Simple Tools for Financial Security at Every Stage of Life. The book walks through a ratio of how much you should have saved given your age, income and retirement goals.

As an example, if you want to retire at age 65 and live on 70% of your pre-retirement income, at age 30 you should be saving 8% of your income and have already accumulated 0.45 times your annual income. Of course, the book goes into a lot more details.

Net Worth Video

Next Up–>Check out my favorite money tools.