Budgeting App Mint is Shutting Down: Here are Some Alternatives

As part of our financial planning process, we encourage our clients to utilize technology to help organize and track their cash flow and expenses. Of the many options available, Mint has been our preferred application for managing budgets, organizing finances, and planning for financial goals. Earlier this month, Mint’s parent company, Intuit, announced the free app will be shutting down at the end of 2023, much to our dismay and that of millions of users. In their announcement, Intuit encouraged Mint users to migrate their data to their other app, Credit Karma. Here is an overview of Credit Karma and some alternative options for budgeting apps.

Credit Karma: More basic version of Mint with access to credit reports

Cost: Free

Overview: Like Mint, Credit Karma is a personal finance software owned by Intuit, which has a strong reputation and history in financial software. The main attraction of Credit Karma is that you can retrieve your credit report and score from Equifax and Transunion for free. Mint has a similar free credit score feature, but from only one credit bureau. Beyond that, Credit Karma has some other basic features but does not provide goal planning or budgeting tools as robust as those in Mint.

Features:
• Monthly spending broken down by category
• Average spending for each category
• Monthly spending trends from month to month
• Encryption and suspicious activity reporting

Conclusion: Mint users can transfer their linked accounts to Credit Karma and bring most of their Mint account balances, historical net worth, and three years of transactions. Unfortunately, this transfer of data will not happen automatically, and Mint users will need to take the steps to migrate information over, just like any alternative app. In addition, the software is more optimized for its website, rather than for the mobile app. Overall, we feel that Credit Karma can be a useful tool to monitor your credit for free, but it does not replicate the budgeting and goals-based planning tools that Mint has. Therefore, it may be a good option in conjunction with another budgeting app.

Simplifi: Closest Mint-equivalent, at a cost

Cost: $2.99/month, billed annually

Overview: Simplifi is a personal finance and money management app owned by Quicken, another reputable personal finance software company. As the name alludes, Simplifi was designed to give users a simple and efficient way to track expenses and manage their personal finances.

Features:
• The ability to create customized spending plans and monitor them
• Financial goal setting
• Bill tracking and reminders
• Detailed reports on spending, income, net worth, and savings
• Encryption and multi-factor authentication for additional security

Conclusion: Simplifi provides stellar mobile app functionality, just like Mint. The two have comparable interfaces and user experiences and are designed for those who want to check their finances on the go. The main difference between Simplifi and Mint is the cost. Whereas Mint provides a free service with advertisements, Simplifi provides a 30-day free trial, and then $2.99/month (billed annually). Simplifi also does not have a credit-tracking feature.

PocketSmith: More advanced than Mint, with financial forecasting

Cost: $9.99/month, billed annually

Overview: For an alternative to Mint that has more advanced features and financial forecasting, consider PocketSmith. Whereas Mint focuses heavily on basic budgeting, PocketSmith allows users to take a more advanced approach to categorizing transactions and offers a unique calendar view that displays upcoming income and expenses.

Features:
• Forward-looking financial forecasts and projections
• “What if” scenarios to plan for various outcomes and assumptions
• Integration with personal financial accounts
• Personalized financial insights and recommendations
• Option to create custom spending categories
• Encryption and two-factor authentication for additional security

Conclusion: PocketSmith offers a free basic version that allows manual transaction imports (no automatic bank feeds), 2 dashboards, 12 budgets, 2 accounts, and 6 months’ projection. However, users looking to take advantage of the software’s unique features would best be served by the Foundation plan, which costs $9.99/month (billed annually). This plan allows for automatic bank feeds, email support, 6 connected banks from one country, 6 dashboards, 10 years’ projection, and unlimited accounts and budgets.

Overall, we believe that keeping track of your budget (both now and in the future) and utilizing technology are foundational parts of a holistic financial plan. With Mint shutting down at the end of 2023, those who are looking to make a switch should do so as soon as possible to ensure data migration. While there are many different budgeting and personal finance apps on the marketplace, there is a lack of another free option that provides everything Mint has to offer. Ultimately, the choice between Credit Karma, Simplifi, PocketSmith, or any other app depends on what you value most in a personal finance tool and how much you’re willing to pay for it.

At Glassy Mountain Advisors, we’re here to help. For questions about financial planning or budgeting, please contact Matt Altman (maltman@glassymountainadvisors.com).