Many users of Mint.com stated synchronization issues started happening only after this switchover occurred. Mint is one of the most popular personal finance apps on the market. I worked with Mint support to fix this for months and eventually they just had me remove it from tracking because they couldn’t fix the problem. It’s less clunky & provides more information for the same price, Free! The site is fairly useless unless you agree to make these connections, since it uses this data for everything it does. You can do this via one of two methods, either via the email address when you signed up or by an SMS text message to your cellphone. The following is from their general privacy policy. Mint also recently introduced ad banners in various parts of the website to monetize users. I’m going to spend some $$ to purchase software that does this in hopes that I will find program with a customer service dept. I really need to get more secure, and use quicken, which happens to be the same developers of mint, a company that has a long history safeguarding extremely sensitive financial data. I appreciate your review of mint.com – especially for those of us who research before handing out sensitive information. One of my accounts is not updating and hasn’t been for three weeks. There must be something better out there. No thanks. Support is non-existent. But my problems with my 2 Colorado PERA accounts still persist. I am an active investor with a decent portfolio spread across several brokerages, banks etc. The issue is in the reporting they don’t consider it tax deferred (ie stating a mutual fund is tax inefficient when in an IRA account). Issues with Yodlee are that they show incorrect monthly balances, also every screen will show a different amount. Though IMO none are as complete as Quicken. I also use mint, though I would rather deal with knowns with my setup. Of what use is a system for tracking your finances if it will not reliably update with your banks and other financial institutions? It looked great at first, but as soon as you try to use it, basic calculations, like the value of your stock portfolio, are wrong. You can specify whether you want the budget to occur once, every month, or every few months, and enter a dollar amount. In 2015 I finally switched to Mint. None. I have been using Mint for about 3 years now but am frustrated by the lack of reporting and the updates breaking from time to time. Does mint have this feature? I do not mind going into Mint and correcting the expenditure category of ATM withdrawals and “Uncategorized” as sometimes computer programs cannot read the mind of a human. It does not support downloads from some of the major banks and other institutions, and does not allow manual entry of data from institutions that are not supported for automated download. Yodlee is new to me. But my patience is running out. I totally disagree. Why do categories matter in budgeting? If you want to exclude an emergency fund from showing up in your available funds, you can. I have been using YouNeedABudget, but still find it tedious to maneuver. Trying to change Categories is hit or miss — some changes take, some don’t.What a mess! It can be used by freelancers, non … We all feel that it is the great software till you face the loss of data. We may share your information with credit bureaus, consumer reporting agencies, and card associations. We’ll see. Like most of Mint, it's much simpler than Intuit's Quicken and lacks many features (see our Quicken Review). Mint’s parent company, Intuit, has been keeping people’s financial data safe for years. Keeping tabs on your finances can get complicated if you have … Mint offers a feature tour when you first create your account, then launches right into requesting usernames and passwords for your banking, credit card, and other financial accounts. Mint uses targeted advertising—very targeted advertising. I completely agree. I found Mint useful for a shallow look at personal finance and as long as your finances were relatively uncomplicated, they worked well. Does mint charge twice when I personally add a transaction? MINT SUPPORT IS ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE!!!!!! Personal Capital DOES work with tax deffered accounts. An industrial-strength expenses aggregator is really all I’m looking for since I run my own analytics on spreadsheet with proprietary categories. The only thing you cannot do is create new categories via the mobile app. So the emails just go to my scam/junk folder where I ignore and automatically delete them. I am throwing in the towel and giving this site a failing grade. It uses bank-level security and encryption to pull in your transaction data while keeping your information safe. Times have changed, and now Quicken has multiple versions of its application — from Window and Mac to apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Android. In addition, the site automatically logs you out after 10 idle minutes. I do not use this in relation to on-line banking in any way; just as account registers with information manually entered and reconciled with monthly statements. I am now using a Mac, and thought that Mint might be the solution,, but, in order to get my financial records in line, I have to reenter all of my info going back to Dec 2010. If you really want your entire financial profile out there on front street, it’s a dangerous proposition. There is no email account for Mint support or even a public forum (through which a more complete discussion of one’s issues might be explored). You also have the option to make changes to your transactions after they are downloaded. And, it’s about as effective as reporting the problems to your houseplants. So even if crooks got your Mint password, they could only see what you have and not directly steal it. It is a big convenience to have all of your information on one easy to review site. The iPad app have more features than the iPhone version. It updates once a day, or more often if you force an update, and you can customize it to contain only what you want to see, which you may want to do: You have to do a significant amount of scrolling to see everything. You’ll be surprised how life-changing something so simple … Today, in a support chat, the rep did at least acknowledge that this is a known problem, experience by many users, and that they are working on it. You get what you pay for.. Whereas Quicken was once the only game in town, now it faces stiff competition from some alternative players, including Mint. from https://security.intuit.com/index.php/privacy, “Reporting to Credit Bureaus. I think the biggest thing for me was how I couldn’t upload my years of data. My bookkeeper is not yet maximizing all of the online banking features which should help with some of my issues. Preferably free is the best since we are very limited on $$….I just want to be sure it’s safe and we won’t lose the little bit of money that we have. It appears that Mint cannot do this. Even MORE frustrating is that I keep getting the same auto-generated responses to my emails from ‘people’ like “Ahmad”, “Fariz”, “Febry” (are these even people???) Though, as discussed at https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/10820/could-mint-com-be-more-secure-and-if-so-how/15197#15197 this still leaves other possibilities for withdrawal open. Thank you for this post. If you want a comprehensive picture of your finances and the best possible recommendations from the service, you should connect to as many accounts as possible. Upon initial setup, Mint.com seamlessly downloaded my financial data. If you want more in-depth support and tools, Personal Capital is a much better choice for that element of your finances. If you've established goals and linked to your investment accounts, you'll see your progress and status here. I have no problems with how it handles securities; I use that functionality as a dashboard/aggregator and an indicator of tax positions. Sam, totally agree with Larry. I use Apple products at home (MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone). Mint used to be great. No phone number to call – just email, which is maddening! Mint recently rolled out a free credit score tracking option, which makes keeping track of your entire financial picture as easy as logging in. Helping make finance easy. Because they are so apparently understaffed, I have a lot of trouble believing their “bank-level” security claim. It must be stressed, however, that the data is collected anonymously and does not refer back to individual usage. BUT now the interface is missing the critical data, “What do I have?” Account balances are missing. I only want a program that syncs my multiple accounts so that I can in one place verify receipts match what was charged to my account and to categorize at-a-glance where I’m spending my money. It comes up with budgets and suggestions based on crude general data mining – in my case, missing the mark by a mile. So Mint for monthly finances, and Fund Manager for investment tracking. Smart, multistep calculators help you establish a plan that will work for meeting your goals and tie it into an existing Mint account or a new one. However, on the scheduled payment date the payment was made (this after making a payment directly on the credit card issuer’s site). I received a message about “unusual spending” when the amount reported has been exactly the same for over two years. Also, I’d like to ask you a question. The suggestions (ads) are the first ads I’ve ever seen that are actually helpful. Quickbooks is being challenged by companies like Xero and will start to lose market share, which they have had the privilege of dominating for a long time. This simple offering helps make Ubuntu and … Beware of customer support and of data deletion! Thanks Aaron for the app mention. They have also recently implement a 2-step authentication system which should give people more confidence. I'm not saying Mint is insecure. Thanks mint! I passed this along to their support team. Save yourself some aggravation and avoid using Mint altogether. Unlike most of the accounting solutions we review, Mint is not for business use. Excellent review. .which I miss terribly. If i don’t change the income number to match what i actually made for the month before the month ends then that month is forever RED unless i fake it and force more income into that month by changing transaction dates. In many cases, an individual's desktop computer is much less secure. Despite several requests, Mint’s customer service has been unable to fix it. Other posters have commented on the trouble they have with some accounts not updating properly for extended periods. I asked customer service about the issue and all they did was instruct me on how to mark a transaction as duplicate. Without the technical bugs experienced during testing, Mint would earn rave reviews, as the service is clearly the most robust automated budgeting tool available. I would love to find something better where I can manually set up accounts and enter transactions along with online syn. Once the breach occurs and the genie is out of the bottle, you cannot fully repair the damage. MINT is not an investment tool or a budget planner-You have to do that for yourself or through some other professional adviser. The majority of my accounts work fine, but I have been dealing with a host of issues with one of my accounts for the past 8 months. It's clean, crisp, colorful, and so simply designed that it's hard to get lost. This seems odd to me given Quicken’s integration with TurboTax. The forums are full of people complaining about various issues, none of which get resolved. Save yourself some headaches and look elsewhere. He currently resides in Long Island, New York, with his wife and three children. The web site gets it’s data from the banks. Back in the ’90s, I helped create some of the first financial websites for firms like Chase, T. Rowe Price, and ING Bank, and later went on to work for Nomura Securities. I now also have to manually refresh every active account on the site when I log in – that used to be automatic. For a more in-depth comparison of the two, read our Quicken vs. Mint article. Thanks. And it’s been over a week. Mint.com’s screens allow NO customization (columns, views, etc.). Free personal finance app Mint can make budgeting and expense tracking paying easy. Mint won't allow you access to your account until you validate your computer with something you have (this is the second factor, with your password being your first). Thank you for your post, I enjoyed reading it. It’s a scandal that anyone takes this site seriously. I’m curious to see how well this goes having read all the comments. At least 50% of the time, the reset fails. The Investments section is Mint's least informational and interactive area. I too had all of the same issues, from tax preperation syncing issues to financial institution sync issues. Mint is a free personal finance service that's in a class by itself. Besides, Microsoft discontinued Money in January 2011, so there aren't many viable alternatives around. In many cases hackers get your account info by using the same user/password combination from other sites, and if your desktop computer is hacked they can capture your keystrokes and in some cases even your video. Instead it looks at the crucial money management problems: taxation, basic budgeting, bill paying, and “real-time” tracking and alerting. Other sites like CountAboutprovide instant feedback based on the import of past transactions, but no one else provides the insight and exceptional user experience that Mint does. I didn’t like Chase bank much anyway. Don’t contact their customer support. Mint.com Review: Company Cons. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I think you guys are nuts to hand over this kind of info to a website … this month, I tracked my expenses using the Google docs spreadsheet when I came across mint.com … but when I saw Step 1 … I said, “forget it” … I’m quite surprised at how many ppl are willing to hand over the keys to such private information …. He’s had a passion for investing since he was 20 years old and has owned multiple businesses for over 20 years. For my car insurance it pulls my full policy amount, not my monthly payment amount, so it miscalculates my current bill. I’ve used Quicken since 1984 (On an IBM XT and an Epson dot matrix) and Mint since it was beta. The only reason I haven’t dropped them yet is because I’m not yet willing to write off the up front investment of time that it took to set it up. It’s entirely worthless, there’s not a good thing about it. If you are really serious about managing your rental properties and is a business, why not use Quickbooks or Quickbooks Online? If you have Apple's Mountain Lion or Mavericks edition of OS X, it can also put notifications into your message bar, which is quite useful. But if any of your institutions change their policies or systems, watch out. I’ve been using Credit Sesame to help boost my credit score, to plan for long term expenses like home loans. It’s great for capturing your net worth in one place and monitoring your account balances. I can make reports and see where cash flow and investment accounts are at any time. STOP and think before using this product. There were no instructions for me, they just fixed it. for the accounts that will. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. But changing times have also brought a changing playing field for these types of applications. Mint forces you into their categories. If you want a complete picture of your finances, you need a tool that won’t have gaping holes. If I lose it, my bad. However plenty of caveats which people need to made aware of if they choose. Many people dislike budgeting because it's hard to predict what you'll spend on different categories of purchases. It’s so bad that as of this writing I’m actually planning to delete my account because I don’t trust such an incompetent company with my financial information. I can tell you that I am receiving alerts from the tech division of my investment company that mint.com is making repeated inquiries into my investment account and I do not have an account with mint.com…….Ironically, mint.com just contacted me via email. Don’t have time to continue to chase it. If Mint chooses to keep it this way, they could at least make the month’s budget editable after the month is over so people like me aren’t stuck with our income being a deciding factor in our Spending Budget when that just doesnt make sense for us —- especially when you consider that you can’t edit the income goal at all in the mobile app. I have 9 months of transaction data on mint which cannot be recovered. Of course there is no phone number and their chat help is clearly in a call center where people don’t comprehend well and you are simply fed lines from a script. In fact, when I made the switch to OSX I too invested in Fusion to maintain my use of Money. I had high hopes, but continuously have connection issues and accounts don’t update. It’s essentially unusable for me. Also, if security is a concern, here’s a blog article from the NY Times outlining the mint.com security infrastructure: https://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/should-you-trust-mint-com/?_r=5. I have asked Mint support about these, but they have yet to fix. The degradation of functionality and the evaporation of support since then are forcing me to explore alternatives. Despite repeated requests, mint.com has failed to respond or to provide any support whatsoever. Questions were never answered correctly. This program is asking me to give all my passwords and screen names. It has the potential to be a great site and helpful to many but I had nothing but problems. I wish it had bill pay, but my bank has that, so that’s fine. Investor Junkie is your shortcut to financial freedom. Anecdotal evidence, of course, but I’m very happy with this free product. You can’t see if it was put into the right category or not. About another week later I received another email saying the problem had been corrected. The site is based on the ability to load your bank account and others accounts to the site and see an overall view and set a budget. You can also ask to be notified if an account balance drops below a certain level or credit availability dips below a specified dollar amount. But looking at Quicken’s site, I can’t tell what I can do to fix errors, etc. I was like – “hey, I contacted you out of mere courtesy. What do you recommend for a hybrid software that I can use? We recommend using Mint for its basic budgeting, goal, and credit score features. I have been using the retired Microsoft’s Money product (free) and find it meets my needs quit well (rental property, investments) without Quicken’s constant reminders to upgrade after 2 or 3 years — plus I found several errors in Quicken that were really pathetic. I know that Mint.com only aggregates status of accounts, not management. I haven’t confirmed this though. I passed this along to their support team. Even though they only got my e-mail and started using it to spam all my friends, it was quite upsetting and a hassle to undo. Also they fail miserably when you want to try to print an income statement for your household showing income versus expenses. and 2 rental properties I would like to keep better track of. Am i correct? You could also just go directly to yodlee.com and they offer the same service, and its data aggregation never fails. Mint is buggy, and the support is virtually non-existent. So it’s not a read only app. For example, it takes several minutes in order to change the category of a particular transaction (i.e., the selection is constantly loading and freezes regularly). Yes, it’s buggy. You'll probably spend a lot of time working on the Transactions page, since this is where all the data Mint has brought in from your cash and credit accounts appears. how do I get through to there customer support. The major flaw in Mint is when users sign up and set their email address as the log-in, Mint does not verify the email address is actually their email address. Don’s waste your money or your time with Mint Credit Monitor. Try a company like YNAB. EIGHT DAYS to change the old URL to the new one!!! Even the chat does not work. Mind you. I am looking for a software that I can use on multiple Macs that is cloud based for syncing. I’ve wasted so much time on this, I’m just about ready to give up. Shortly after closing my account the unusual number of marketing offers stopped and I have never received another offer that contained my personal financial balances. [BTW, Contrary to the authors assertion, there are viable alternatives, although for my money, Quicken (still vibrant and supported by an active online community) will not be among them because of Intuit’s emasculation of one my favorite finds.]. However, the company decided to nix this service, for reasons not entirely clear to us. Another feature I like is to compare your spending with any city in the US it tracks. Until May 2018, Mint offered a Bill Pay feature that was very handy. If people want to hand over the keys to their bank account to some entity on the Internet, that is their prerogative. This isn’t to say either that your bank security themselves is completely foolproof. The user comments and your responses are what I found most valuable. Linux Mint 20 “Ulyana” Review: The Most Complete OS For Everyone Last week, Linux Mint founder Clement Lefebvre released the latest long-term version — Linux Mint 20 “Ulyana.” Mint 20 is … You think Intuit acquired this company without putting a lot of money in the backend security??? Can anybody recommend another platform that has the autolink feature with decent analytical functionality and a committed team that stands behind it? It is not worth it. I have relied heavily on it for over 4 years, but in the past year its responsiveness has gone down and its glitchiness has gone WAY up. Brian, when reading your comment, I thought I wrote it. Customer service was poor. What is equally amazing is how much further it needs to go in order to accommodate the varying levels of consumer needs. Who knows what they are doing “behind the scenes” with such personal info? As I began the forced transition to Mint.com, I already noticed significant differences that I considered big failings. I’ve been looking for a simple budgeting app, and was recommended mint.com by a co-worker. (Nope, it’s still not corrected.) I am really new at online or offline budget software – I am the worst when it comes to finances. Quicken is my go-to finance app but I use Mint to verify it primarily. I continued to receive more offers that contained very accurate financial figures as related to my personal accounts. As for a replacement to a full service desktop accounting personal finance application, it is not. Really not that convienent as marketed, for sure. This is not to mention that customer service is non-existent. In this recent review of Mint – this author talks about adding other accounts that will not directly link. First of all, it appears that they outsource to foreign countries and the the support staff don’t understand English or are not properly trained. I use Mint to aggregate all of my info. Typically most user’s computer is more insecure method. I do not want to use Mint (weak investing support, no online bill payment, no bank reconciliation capability). In fact, the first time you select Budgets in the toolbar (assuming you've imported transactions and categorized them), Mint will have already started your budgets for you. Who keeps Mint in check? I understand that it’s complex and that’s okay. If you struggle to budget, Mint … A Single pane of window if you will to see all your finances. I use Mint all the time and can certainly recommend it for people looking for a place to consolidate and aggregate all their finances in one place. PersonalCapital’s cash flow chart almost won me over. It’s … How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad, How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill, How to Find Free Tools to Optimize Your Small Business, How to Get Started With Project Management, The Best Personal Finance Services for 2020, Apple Co-Founder Wozniak Has a New Startup That Melds Blockchain and Green Tech, Facebook-Backed Cryptocurrency Project Libra Rebrands With a New Name: Meet Diem, Intuit Ditches Credit Karma's Free Tax-Filing Business Amid Antitrust Concerns, Raising Saving-Savvy Kids: How to Talk to Your Children About Money, PayPal to Support Buying and Selling Select Cryptocurrencies. Especially that they are automatically done for you. You can create accounts, transactions, and budgets; receive alerts; and view a severely truncated version of Trends. I’ve had the Sync issues with Mint, so I looked elsewhere for a more reliable program. I can not now fix the problems this caused, making all my work useless. This is a very effective, informative page—Mint’s version of reports. I would love to have a Mac update of Quicken, but since that doesn’t exist, can anyone recommend a fresh, user friendly system that will take me safely forward? Their support is absolutely useless. I scheduled my electric bill to be paid last month but then got a letter saying my bill wasn’t paid. Also interesting that Mint is having issues now that Intuit grabbed it up. All my year over year comparison is lost. I logged into Mint and sure enough, the current status of that bill was canceled. Required fields are marked *. Mint Review Summary. So, great concept, great app, terrible support. This puts my trust in someone else and either on line or within this program. Otherwise you have to down load every transaction you have in Excel and sort through that mess. Now that Intuit has allowed it to become a glitch-riddled joke of a platform, all of that clarity and certainty is gone. Ubuntu And Linux Mint Installation. Still, I’m sure I’ll find myself hunkering down in front of iBank tracking every nickel and dime of my money. With the exception of a few cosmetic differences, the Android app and iOS app are identical. In the App Store, Mint has over 500,000 reviews and an average rating of 4.7 stars (out of 5), making it one of the highest-rated apps I’ve seen. How do they make their money and thought the recommendations had something to do with it, but you mentioned the spending trends analysis which to be honest isn’t a bad trade off. https://investorjunkie.com/4183/quickbooks-online-review/. Mint is versatile enough to help anyone’s money make sense without much effort. Mint is a personal finance management tool designed for people who want an easy, simple, and affordable way to manage their money. Linux Mint Review – Available Drivers The driver manager is an essential app for Linux Mint and is similar to the one included with most Ubuntu derived distros. I was sorely disappointed in Personal Capital’s lack of functionality, and just wanted to know if Mint is just as inflexible. Infrequently lose account and are unable to reconnect you with that account in other words they can no longer download or update anything in that account. And the app wipes your data every time you sign out. I like Mint and use it, but mostly for monthly budget work. See All Accounting Reviews Mint has told me it was fixed 4 times now! I tried PersonalCapital as well but ultimately went with Mint. Are you still using Mint or iBank or ? The basic features of both platforms are very similar. In my opinion, while brilliant the product is a glorified smokescreen to gather consumer financial data, demographics, income and sell that information for revenue. PCMag Digital Group. I would NOT use Mint again. Quicken sounds like your best bet then since the online aggregators are read only. To me providing them my banks ids and passwords were the main factors of not using mint regardless of what they claim. At the time, I’d forgotten my online info and my online access was locked. In WellsFargo website you can create “guest accounts” with “view-only” mode. I have to strongly recommend against signing up. I have a savings account for auto maintenance and Mint thinks it’s a loan. It is even more difficult to sign in than quicken not to mention the variety of needed passwords. I’m sorry I did not find all of these comments before today. When looking for my personal finance solution of choice, I had also looked at several online solutions including Mint, Mvelopes, Yodlee, and others. Just go online. After all the frustration, I’m going to delete my account over there, and may be not use TurboTax or Mint ever again. Though the apps don’t replicate the desktop experience entirely, they give you access to the information you’re likely to need when you’re away from home or the office.