best finance software

[hillview]

I need to get a sense of exactly where we are spending money -- if you use software to track and/or manage a budget what do you use? do you like it? how do you use it/what do you use it to accomplish? how hard was it to set up? how hard is it to maintain monthly?
Thanks!

[Zukini]

We love Mint.com. We check it almost daily via the app - to monitor account transactions (it’s shown pending fraudulent transactions on cc before the bank even caught them), account balances, and the surprisingly fun to track, overall net worth.

It has a budgeting feature which we’ve set up with categories both generic and customized to us. It’s more of a lookback feature in my opinion — you can set budget limits for each category and view easy monthly charts on how spending or saving is going. It’s very helpful when planning for things like Christmas gifts (how much did we actually spend last year?), health savings accounts (how much did we spend on doctor, dentist, therapies for DS, prescriptions? Then we have a solid handle on what to fund in account for following year), or asking why the auto-debit toll bills are so frequent and having a family conversation about when we will or will not use a toll road. Frankly, we would never have purchased the home we have now without being able to pull annual figures from every single category and confidently build our budget scenarios in Excel with real numbers on costs for our existing vs future home. I like that it does not allow us to skip over transactions, despite being small or irregular, which is what we would tend to do if we just built a “pie in the sky budget” on paper. What tolls, right? I’d also forget categories like the babysitter for date nights, quarterly pest control, spending on iTunes, etc. It all adds up.

YNAB and Every Dollar probably do a much better job at forward looking budgeting, assigning every dollar to specific categories, getting a month ahead on expenses, and building “sinking funds” or saving ahead for irregular expenses like Back to School, Christmas, car repairs, etc. I think it’s important to note that with any of these tools, you will get more value out of it the better your transactions are categorized. Eg purchases at big box store like Target or Costco can lump a lot of categories together. I either separate items on the conveyor belt and ring them up as separate transactions (grocery, diapers, gift, electronic, clothing) and tag them separately or do a rough split in Mint on the single receipt transaction after the fact. Takes a couple seconds but is worth it for being able to rely on the data for planning going forward.

I was super skeptical about Mint when DH discovered it many years ago, mostly about the privacy aspect. But we’ve never had any issues in that regard. The setup to add each account is one-time unless you get a wonky bank or credit card provider website that changes their settings or requires authentication often. It links to Zillow so you can input your home, if you own, along with any vehicles if they have value, and tag those assets to any loans or mortgages. Throw in any retirement or investment accounts and it provides a great overall picture. It’s very motivating when you can see the numbers and challenge yourself to get them up or down, depending on asset or liability/expense. We’ve had it setup for well over 5 years now and I can honestly say, I would actually pay a modest fee for the Mint tool. I also like that the hard data has helped to avoid arguments with DH and get us on the same page as far as our goals, essential vs non essential spending, etc. It keeps financial discussions focused on the topics at hand, less emotional, and allows us to work together like it is literally a business we are running (daily alerts and monthly reports help!). It’s been well worth it to us as a family!

[petesgirl]

I just started using mint a few months ago and am pleased so far. It is definitely eye-opening to see how much we spend and where!

[hillview]

Thanks I just set mint up and it seems great. Well shocking but great

[gcc2k]

We love Mint.com. We check it almost daily via the app - to monitor account transactions (it’s shown pending fraudulent transactions on cc before the bank even caught them), account balances, and the surprisingly fun to track, overall net worth.

It has a budgeting feature which we’ve set up with categories both generic and customized to us. It’s more of a lookback feature in my opinion — you can set budget limits for each category and view easy monthly charts on how spending or saving is going. It’s very helpful when planning for things like Christmas gifts (how much did we actually spend last year?), health savings accounts (how much did we spend on doctor, dentist, therapies for DS, prescriptions? Then we have a solid handle on what to fund in account for following year), or asking why the auto-debit toll bills are so frequent and having a family conversation about when we will or will not use a toll road. Frankly, we would never have purchased the home we have now without being able to pull annual figures from every single category and confidently build our budget scenarios in Excel with real numbers on costs for our existing vs future home. I like that it does not allow us to skip over transactions, despite being small or irregular, which is what we would tend to do if we just built a “pie in the sky budget” on paper. What tolls, right? I’d also forget categories like the babysitter for date nights, quarterly pest control, spending on iTunes, etc. It all adds up.

YNAB and Every Dollar probably do a much better job at forward looking budgeting, assigning every dollar to specific categories, getting a month ahead on expenses, and building “sinking funds” or saving ahead for irregular expenses like Back to School, Christmas, car repairs, etc. I think it’s important to note that with any of these tools, you will get more value out of it the better your transactions are categorized. Eg purchases at big box store like Target or Costco can lump a lot of categories together. I either separate items on the conveyor belt and ring them up as separate transactions (grocery, diapers, gift, electronic, clothing) and tag them separately or do a rough split in Mint on the single receipt transaction after the fact. Takes a couple seconds but is worth it for being able to rely on the data for planning going forward.

I was super skeptical about Mint when DH discovered it many years ago, mostly about the privacy aspect. But we’ve never had any issues in that regard. The setup to add each account is one-time unless you get a wonky bank or credit card provider website that changes their settings or requires authentication often. It links to Zillow so you can input your home, if you own, along with any vehicles if they have value, and tag those assets to any loans or mortgages. Throw in any retirement or investment accounts and it provides a great overall picture. It’s very motivating when you can see the numbers and challenge yourself to get them up or down, depending on asset or liability/expense. We’ve had it setup for well over 5 years now and I can honestly say, I would actually pay a modest fee for the Mint tool. I also like that the hard data has helped to avoid arguments with DH and get us on the same page as far as our goals, essential vs non essential spending, etc. It keeps financial discussions focused on the topics at hand, less emotional, and allows us to work together like it is literally a business we are running (daily alerts and monthly reports help!). It’s been well worth it to us as a family!

I could have written your post word for word. We started using Mint over 5 years ago when I became a SAHM. It's truly a fabulous, detailed, yet holistic look at finances that is crucial to affording 3 kids on a teacher's salary.

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