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Personal Finance

Personal Capital (Empower) vs Mint: My Ratings After Using Both for Years

January 11, 2023 by Rob Berger

Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links, meaning at no cost to you I earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase or open an account. I only recommend products or services that I (1) believe in and (2) would recommend to my mom. Advertisers have had no control, influence, or input on this article, and they never will.

Personal Capital and Mint are two of the most popular personal finance apps today. I've used both for many years. In this article we'll compare Mint vs Personal Capital to see which one is best.

As is often the case, both Personal Capital and Mint have pros and cons. In some cases Personal Capital is the best option. In other cases Mint is the better choice. And because both are free, there's even an argument to be made for using both. So let's dive in.

Update

Personal Capital is now called Empower, and the free tool is now called the Empower Personal Dashboard. Nothing about the tool has changed, and it's still free.
Personal Capital vs Mint
  • Overview of Personal Capital (Empower) and Mint
    • Personal Capital (Empower)
    • Mint
  • Empower vs Mint Comparison
    • Similarities
    • Differences
  • Who is Personal Capital (Empower) Best For
  • Who is Mint Best For
  • Should You Use Both Empower and Mint?
  • Can Empower or Mint Track Bitcoin and Other Crypto?
  • How do Empower and Mint Make Money?
  • Final Thoughts

Overview of Personal Capital (Empower) and Mint

Both Mint and Empower are online tools designed to help us manage our money. They both enable users to connect their financial accounts for automatic download of transactions and balances. And they are both free.

Personal Capital (Empower)

Personal Capital is owned by Empower Retirement, which itself administers more than $1.2 trillion in assets through retirement accounts. Personal Capital (Empower) is a registered investment advisor in the business of managing investors' portfolios. For our purposes, we will focus on the free financial tool that if offers, regardless of whether or not you use its investment management services.

The Empower Personal Dashboard enables you to link your financial accounts. You can link bank accounts (checking, savings, money market accounts and CDs), credit cards, student loans, mortgages, car loans, retirement accounts (e.g., 401(k) and IRAs), taxable investment accounts, crypto coins and tokens, and real estate.

Once linked, Empower provides a wealth of tools to monitor, manage and analyze your money. A glimpse of its dashboard reveals the power of this tool:

Empower Personal Dashboard

Beyond the dashboard, Empower offers the following features:

  • Track income and spending by category
  • Track your net worth
  • Evaluate the asset allocation of your investments
  • Evaluate your investment fees
  • Calculate whether you can retire
  • Plan your retirement with multiple scenarios
  • Track upcoming bills
  • Have Empower analyze your portfolio and make suggestions

Of all of these features, those related to investments are Empower's strongest features.

Try Empower

Mint

Aaron Patzer founded Mint more than a decade ago, and Intuit purchased it for $170 million in 2009. Mint was the first personal finance app to aggregate a user's accounts all in one place. While that's commonplace today, it was unprecedented 15 years ago.

Mint Dashboard

As with Empower, users can link virtually all of their financial accounts to Mint. Once linked, Mint provides tools to manage and evaluate your finances. Some of its key features include:

  • Budgeting by category
  • Create savings goals
  • Create goals to get out of debt
  • Check and monitor your credit score
  • Track your investments
  • Track upcoming bills

Of all of these features, those related to budgeting and goal setting are Mint's strongest features.

Empower vs Mint Comparison

Similarities

Both Empower and Mint share a number of similarities:

  • Account Connections: Both enable users to connect to just about any financial institution with an online login. You'll need to provide your username and password to create the connect, but both sites uses strong security features to keep user's data protected. And at no time can either company control the money in any of a user's accounts.
  • Financial Dashboard: Both apps offer a financial dashboard where user's can get a high level view of their investments. Empower's dashboard shows your net worth, budget, cash flow, investment portfolio balance, retirement savings and emergency fund. Mint's dashboard shows your upcoming bills, any goals you've created, spending, your credit score, monthly budget and investments.
  • Cost: Both apps are free, although as described below, the way they each make money is different and does affect the user experience.
  • Budgeting: Both apps offer budgeting tools to track your income and expenses. As noted below, however, Mint's budgeting features are more robust.
  • Investing. Both apps offer tools to track your investments. As noted below, however, Empower's investing features are more robust.
  • Connecting Accounts: Both Empower and Mint enable you to connect your financial accounts to the app. While this feature is similar with both services, I've found Empower's connection to more reliable. There are still some accounts I cannot connect to Mint no matter how often I try.
  • Bill Tracking: Both apps track your monthly bills and alert you when they are due.
  • Mobile Apps: In addition to their websites, both offer apps for smartphones, tables, and Apple watch.

Differences

Here are the key differences between Mint and Empower:

  • Investing Tools: While both apps offer tools to track your investments, Empower is by far the better option. There are several critical features it offers that Mint does not. First, it can show you details of your asset allocation, down to the specific stocks of fund you own. It automatically calculates your investment expenses and how those fees will eat away at your wealth over time. And it can analyze your portfolio and make recommendations based on your risk tolerance.
  • Budgeting Tools: When it comes to budgeting, Mint is the winner. Empower will track your expenses, categorize them, and present spending data with useful graphs. What it doesn't do, that Mint does, is allow you to create a budget with spending goals by category. Having said that, if budgeting is your primary focus, there are better options than Mint.
  • Goals: Here Mint is the better option. You can create savings goals or a goal to get out of debt. Mint offers tools to determine how much extra, if any, you should pay toward your debt or savings goal. It also tracks your progress. Empower doesn't offer this feature.
  • Retirement Planning: Empower offers a robust retirement planner. Using Monte Carlo simulation, it can estimate your retirement readiness. You can plan for income (e.g., social security or a pension) during retirement and expenses (e.g., monthly expenses, vacation, home purchase). You can also create multiple retirement scenarios and run them against each other. Mint doesn't offer this feature.
  • Credit Score: You can monitor your credit score through Mint. Empower doesn't offer this feature.

Who is Personal Capital (Empower) Best For

Without question Empower is best for those with investments. It can track retirement accounts (e.g., 401(k), 403(b), TSP) as well as taxable accounts and even HSAs. Earlier this year it also adding support to track crypto prices.

Personal Capital Asset Allocation

Once tracked, it offers some of the best tools available to retail investors. You can drill down into the details of your asset allocation across all of your investment accounts. It offers an excellent fee analyzer to evaluate your investing costs and their effect on your wealth over time. And its retirement planner is one of the best available today.

Unlike Mint, Empower could serve as the only financial tool you use. While it doesn't offer some of the budgeting features Mint does, its cash flow tracking and automatic categorization of expenses have been more than sufficient for our purposes.

Who is Mint Best For

Mint is a better option for those with little or no investments who want to manage their budget. Mint's lack of investment tools is not an issue if you have no investments. And Mint's budget tools, including its savings and debt payment goals, are more robust than what Empower offers.

One might also add Mint's ability to track your credit score. I find this feature less compelling. Today you can track your credit score through just about any credit card you have as well as many other financial institutions.

Should You Use Both Empower and Mint?

Because both apps are free, many people do use both. One could use Empower to track investments, while using Mint for budgeting. The downside is that it does require you to log into two different apps to manage all of your finances. So while it is one option, sticking to one app or the other if possible is ideal.

Can Empower or Mint Track Bitcoin and Other Crypto?

Empower can track Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other crypto coins and tokens. It can track meta tokens such as SAND and MANA, as well. That said, Mint allows you to connect your Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, Gemini or BlockFI accounts, while Empower does not. Instead, with Empower you create a manual account and add your Crypto and balances.

How do Empower and Mint Make Money?

While both apps are free, it's important to understand how they each make money. Their revenue models have a direct affect on your use of each tool.

Empower makes money from those users who decide to use their wealth management services. As a result, they do require your mobile number as part of the signup process and they will call you. They offer to run a free analysis of your investment portfolio and how they believe their services can help you.

You are not required to accept this free analysis or use them to manage your investments. Either way, you can continue to use Empower's financial tool for free.

In contrast, Mint uses an advertising model. As a result, you will be presented with targeted offers for bank accounts, credit cards and investment accounts. The integrate these offers into the user invoice, so it's impossible to avoid them.

In either case, I find these revenue models to be benign and well worth the free tools.

Final Thoughts

For me, Empower is better than Mint because of its investment tools. Further, its budgeting tools are more than sufficient for our needs. For those just starting out and with minimal investments, however, Mint may be the better option.

Filed Under: Investing, Personal Finance

8 Best Mint Alternatives for 2023 (Free & Paid)

December 22, 2022 by Rob Berger

Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links, meaning at no cost to you I earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase or open an account. I only recommend products or services that I (1) believe in and (2) would recommend to my mom. Advertisers have had no control, influence, or input on this article, and they never will.

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 8 best Mint alternatives worth considering.

Alternatives to Mint.com
In this Article
  • Top Mint.com Alternative Picks
  • Best Alternatives to Mint Budget Tracker
    • 1. Personal Capital (Empower)–Best Overall Alternative to Mint.com
    • 2. Tiller Money–Best for those who love spreadsheets
    • 3. Monarch Money–Best for Couples
    • 4. CountAbout–Best for converting data from Mint
    • 5. Simplifi–Best budgeting app for smartphones
    • 6. You Need a Budget (YNAB)–Best for budgeting
    • 7. PocketSmith
    • 8. Fidelity Full View
  • Other Mint Replacement Options
  • Why Switch from Mint?
  • Mythodology
  • Mint Alternatives FAQs

Top Mint.com Alternative Picks

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

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Monarch Money–This is an excellent alternative if you manage money as a couple and 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

Personal Capital (Empower) 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.

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 Personal Capital that you can check out.

Try Personal Capital (Empower)

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.

Tiller Money 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)

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.

Try Tiller

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.

Monarch Money

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.

Try Monarch Money

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.

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.

Try CountAbout

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.

Simplifi App

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.

Try Simplifi

6. 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 Quicken Alternative

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.

Try 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.

PocketSmith app

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
Try PocketSmith

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

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
Try Fidelity's Full View

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

What is the best free alternative to Mint?

Personal Capital (Empower) 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.

Should I switch from Mint.com?

Mint continues to offer a solid budgeting and investment tracking app. Some, however, have complained about issues connecting Mint to banks and other financial institutions. It also uses an advertising revenue model, so users are inundated with ads.

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.

Filed Under: Personal Finance

7 Best Net Worth Calculators in 2023 (#1 is Free)

December 15, 2021 by Rob Berger

Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links, meaning at no cost to you I earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase or open an account. I only recommend products or services that I (1) believe in and (2) would recommend to my mom. Advertisers have had no control, influence, or input on this article, and they never will.

There are plenty of free net worth trackers on the internet. For most of them, you enter the value of your assets and liabilities, and the calculator does the simple math to show you how much you're worth. The best net worth calculators, however, do far more than simple math.

They enable you to connect accounts to automatically pull in data. They can connect bank accounts, credit cards, investment and retirement accounts, and even the value of your home. These calculators then regularly update your net worth and keep track of changes over time.

With that in mind, what follows is a list of what I think are the top net worth apps available today.

Editor's Top Picks

There are countless free and paid tools you can use to track your net worth. Here are the two I think are the best of the best.

  1. Empower–This free tool, previously called Personal Capital, is my top pick for tracking your net worth. You can connect bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, retirement accounts, crypto, and even real estate via Zillow. Beyond tracking your net worth, Empower also offers a wealth of tools and charts to evaluate your finances.
  2. Kubera–For those that just want to track net worth, Kubera offers a very clean interface. It links with just about every financial institution out there, including crypto accounts. While it doesn't offer portfolio analysis tools at present, it does give you visibility into individual holdings. Kubera does cost $150 a year, but they offer a 14-day trial for $1.
Net Worth Apps
  • Editor's Top Picks
  • Top Net Worth Calculators
    • 1. Empower–Editor's Choice
    • 2. Kubera
    • 3. Tiller
    • 4. YNAB
    • 5. Mint
    • 6. Quicken
    • 7. New Retirement
  • Final Thoughts

Top Net Worth Calculators

Household net worth has grown substantially over the last few years, as tracked by the Fed.

Net Worth

The growth has largely followed the increase in real estate prices and stocks. Of course, net worth doesn't always go up, which is one reason I have tracked our net worth for about 20 years.

Here are some tools that can make tracking your net worth easy and informative:

1. Empower–Editor's Choice

Best for investment management

Empower is without question the best net worth tracker available today. Previously called Personal Capital, it's still free and no other tool offers more features.

Empower Financial Dashboard

With Empower, you link all your financial accounts (it secures your data with AES-256 encryption). You can also add accounts without online logins manually (e.g., artwork or vehicles). Once linked, it automatically pulls in all transactions and balances and tracks your net worth over time.

Why Empower is my top pick, however, goes far beyond tracking your balance sheet. It enables you to track all of your income and expenses by category. It offers excellent tools to evaluate your investments, including an asset allocation inspector, fee analyzer, and retirement planner.

Try Empower for Free

2. Kubera

Best for just net worth tracking

Kubera is a relatively new app designed specifically to track net worth. You can link just about any type of account to Kubera. In addition to bank, credit card and investment accounts, you can link cars using the VIN, the value of real estate via Zillow, and even the value of domain names.

The user interface is clean, and the tool allows you to organize your assets and liabilities as you wish.

Kubera Net Worth Tracker

In addition to keeping tabs on your net worth, Kubera can keep track of your insurance policies and securely store important documents.

Kubera costs $150 a year, which is one reason Personal Capital earns the top spot. That said, they are offering a $1 14-day trial.

3. Tiller

Best for budgeting with spreadsheets

Tiller brings the world of budgeting to Google Sheets. It enables you to connect all of your financial accounts and then download the data into Google Sheets. It's ideal for those who prefer to work with spreadsheets rather than an app.

It comes with countless templates. The main templates track your budget on a monthly and yearly basis. For our purposes, it also comes with a net worth template.

Tiller Net Worth Tracker

I use Tiller to monitor our budget. While I use Personal Capital for everything else, including net worth, Tiller could serve that purpose for those who want everything in spreadsheets.

Tiller offers a 30-day free trial. After that, it costs $79 a year.

4. YNAB

Best for budgeting with an app

If spreadsheets aren't your thing, YNAB (You Need a Budget) offers one of the best budgeting apps you'll find anywhere. I used it for years and found it to be an excellent tool, particularly for those struggling to live paycheck to paycheck.

One feature YNAB offers is a high level view of your net worth.

YNAB Net Worth

YNAB offers a 34-day free trial. After that it costs $14.99 a month or $98.99 a year.

5. Mint

Mint is one of the oldest budgeting apps still around. I used it for years when it came out, but more recently have found alternatives to Mint, like Personal Capital, to be a better option overall. Still, if you primary goal is budgeting (not tracking investments), Mint is a solid option.

Among other features, Mint tracks your net worth. You can link virtually all of your financial accounts to Mint. Once linked, you can track your net worth over time.

Mint Net Worth

Mint is free, but does use an advertising model. As such, expect to see offers for financial products peppered throughout the user experience.

6. Quicken

One of the first budgeting tools, and one that I remember using when it first came out, is Quicken. It is responsible for bringing personal finance into the digital age. Today, it seems to be a lot less popular, possibly because it moved to a subscription pricing model. Nevertheless, it is a solid budgeting tool that will track your net worth.

Quicken Net Worth

Quicken can provide a wealth of data about everything from spending to investments. On the downside, the user interface is not the best. As a result, Quicken is best for those who care more about data than how that data is presented. It's also why many have looked to Quicken alternatives.

Quicken's cost depends on the type of subscription you get, and ranges from $35.99 a year to about $100 a year.

7. New Retirement

The last net worth calculator on our list is New Retirement. This app is designed to help you plan for retirement and manage your money during retirement. It offers a wealth of tools covering everything from when to take social security to whether to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. And it tracks your net worth.

New Retirement Net Worth

New Retirement is not the best choice if your only goal is to track your net worth. But if you also want to plan for your retirement, it's one of the best.

New Retirement offers a free plan. To take advantage of all of its features costs $96 a year.

Final Thoughts

Tracking your Net worth is simple. It's just a matter of adding up your assets (everything you own) and your liabilities (everything you owe). The different is your net worth.

You could use a simple spreadsheet to keep tabs on your assets and liabilities. I've done that for years. The tools listed above, however, make it much easier and offer additional tools to help you manage, track and evaluate your finances and investments.

Filed Under: Personal Finance

7 Simple Calculations that Show the Awesome Power of Compound Interest

November 12, 2021 by Rob Berger

Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links, meaning at no cost to you I earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase or open an account. I only recommend products or services that I (1) believe in and (2) would recommend to my mom. Advertisers have had no control, influence, or input on this article, and they never will.

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.
Compound interest Calculator

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.

Filed Under: Personal Finance

10 Ways to Protect Your Financial Accounts from Hackers

September 27, 2021 by Rob Berger

Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links, meaning at no cost to you I earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase or open an account. I only recommend products or services that I (1) believe in and (2) would recommend to my mom. Advertisers have had no control, influence, or input on this article, and they never will.

According to one study, cybercrime will cost the world $10.5 trillion a year by 2025. Today, every financial account from banks to credit cards to investments offer online access. For investors, the risk of loss from cybercrime ranks as the #1 concern.

Fortunately, there are steps we can all take to increase our online security. For very little money, we can significantly reduce the likelihood that a computer hacker will gain access to our financial accounts. Here are 10 steps you can take to help secure your online accounts.

10 Tips for Securing Your Online Accounts

1. Use a Password Manager

I have four rules when it comes to passwords:

  1. Change passwords regularly
  2. Never use the same password twice
  3. Use 16 character passwords (or longer)
  4. Passwords should contain upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and symbols

LMG Security, a cybersecurity and digital forensics services company, notes that an 8-character password can be cracked in about 8 hours, while a 16-character password would take 6.5 trillion years.

The problem with the above rules is that it makes it impossible to memorize all of your passwords. The answer is to use a password manager. My tool of choice is LastPass.

With LastPass you can create widely complicated passwords for all of your online accounts. The passwords are never saved on the LastPass services (they encrypt and decrypt them at the local level–your computer). It can be used on mobile devices, and it even enables you to share sign-on credentials with friends and family (if you want to) without revealing your password.

2. Use VPN

VPN, short for Virtual Private Network, does two really important things to you secure when browsing the internet. First, it encrypts the data sent to and from your browser or app. Second, it hides your IP address. These two features allow you to surf the internet securely and anonymously.

Using a VPN is a must on any public network (coffee shop, hotel, etc.). I use it at home as well. There's no need for my internet service provider to harvest my internet data. Internet service providers are allowed to sell data about our internet usage. A VPN blocks that data.

My VPN of choice is NordVPN. NordVPN can be used on any device, is easy to set up, and is reasonably priced.

NordVPN: Save 73% w/ 2-Year Plan

3. Set Up Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor Authentication (2FA) adds an extra layer of protection to your username and password. To log into an account, you'll need to enter a secure code, sometimes referred to as a one-time password (OTP). The OTP is sent via text or email, or through an app such as Google Authenticator, depending on how the financial institution has set up its 2FA.

I use 2FA on every online account that makes it available, including email accounts. While it adds an extra step to logging into an account, the security it provides is priceless. According to a 2019 Microsoft study, 2FA blocks 99.9% of the attacks on an account.

4. Change your Security Questions

Many websites use security questions to verify your identity. Many of these questions ask for information that in theory only you would know. Common examples include your mother's maiden name and your place of birth. The problem is that hackers can get this information, too.

A good friend of mine recently had $150,000 taken from his line of credit. The hackers called the bank and “verified” their identity by correctly answering his security questions. They found the information online. The only thing that saved him was a call from the bank when the hackers tried to wire the money out of his account.

For this reason, I no longer use common security questions. I make sure that the question and answer include information that cannot be found online. If need be, I make up the answers and keep the information stored securely at home (LastPass can store this information for you as well).

5. Set up Alerts

Financial accounts allow you to set up text or email alerts. I use this for any transactions on bank accounts and investment accounts. In this way, I get an instant alert any time money is transferred from an account. On investment accounts, I get notice of a transaction before it's completed. This gives me time to contact the brokerage firm if I didn't authorize the transaction.

6. Don't Click Links in Emails

Be very suspicious of links in emails. If I receive an email purportedly from a financial institution, I rarely click the link. Instead, I'll log into my account to deal with whatever the issue is. And if need be, I'll call the bank or brokerage firm.

7. Don't Call Phone Numbers in Emails

Speaking of calling a financial institution, I never call the number in an email. Instead, I call the number on the bank of my credit or debit card. For brokerage firms, I call the number on my statement or the firm's website. A phone number in an email may not be legitimate.

8. Only Download Apps from App Stores

For apps on a smartphone or tablet, only download them from the Apple or Android app stores. This insures you are downloading legitimate apps that have been approved by the respective platforms.

9. Set up Ability to Track and Wipe Your Phone

Make sure you have the ability to locate your phone and wipe the data from it. This is important if your phone is ever lost or stolen. I had my phone stolen at a chess tournament of all places many years ago. Fortunately, I was able to wipe the data from the phone. It's also important to password protect your phone, too.

10. Use Antivirus Software

Finally, it's important to use antivirus software on your PC and, yes, even your Mac. These tools help detect and remove any malicious code on your computer.

For PCs, my favorite is NortonLifeLock. You can purchase just the Norton Antivirus software, or add LifeLock protection as well. For Macs, Norton also offers an antivirus solution. There are other options, some free. Whatever you choose, it's important to project your computers with antivirus software.

Bonus Tip: Consider keeping your investments in more than one brokerage. If you have a 401k, it's likely at a different financial institution than your IRA, although not always. And when you retire, it's common to consolidate all of your assets at one place. While this is convenient, I'm much more comfortable splitting our assets among two or more brokerage firms.

Final Thoughts

Computer hacking is a reality we all confront. By tacking a few simple steps, however, we can significantly increase the protection of our online accounts, making it much harder for hackers to gain access. A password manager and VPN are a must, as is setting up 2FA. These steps along can prevent the vast majority of problems.

Filed Under: Technology, Personal Finance, Tools

How to Calculate Your Net Worth (and Why it Matters)

January 12, 2021 by Rob Berger

Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links, meaning at no cost to you I earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase or open an account. I only recommend products or services that I (1) believe in and (2) would recommend to my mom. Advertisers have had no control, influence, or input on this article, and they never will.

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.

Track your Net Worth
Table of Contents
  • What is a Net Worth Statement
  • Net Worth Statement vs a Budget
    • Time Period
    • Transactions that Affect our Net Worth and Budget
      • Getting paid
      • Paying off a credit card
  • What to Include in Your Net Worth
    • Rule #1: Include all liabilities
    • Rule # 2: Include Cash and Assets that Go Up in Value Over Time
  • How to Track Your Net Worth for Free
    • Google Sheets
    • Personal Capital
  • The Awesome Value of a Money-Making Net Worth Statement
  • What is a Good Net Worth
    • By Age and Income
    • Net Worth Ratios
  • Net Worth Video

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:

net worth statement
Source: https://open.lib.umn.edu/exploringbusiness/chapter/14-3-the-financial-planning-process/

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.

Publicly traded companies are no different. Their annual income statement (called a Statement of Operations) shows income and expenses over the past fiscal year. In contrast, their balance sheet is as of the last day of their fiscal year.

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.

This is exactly how budgeting software such as Personal Capital (Empower) works. The charge to the credit charge results in a categorized expense. Paying the card off is simply a transfer.

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.

If you do include your cars on your net worth statement, but sure to reduce the value each year based on the amount of depreciation.

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.

Excel net worth template

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.

Personal Capital Financial Dashboard

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 by age

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.

Filed Under: Personal Finance

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