Mint for personal finance

2d 17 Comments

We are pretty bad at managing expenses and setting up budget. I am thinking of starting to use mint for this purpose since we are already using TurboTax. We have our 401ks, investments and HSA plus couple of bank accounts. I am asking for feedback of using mint for personal finance management.

TC:200k

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TOP 17 Comments
  • Copilot is 🔥
    2d 2
  • Appnovation / Eng
    cRfy74

    Appnovation Eng

    cRfy74
    This is a common way of distracting yourself from the real problem. If you want to get a handle of your finances, first place to look at is your spending habits. I would suggest you to make a list of all your fixed and recurring expenses like mortgage/rent, car payments, bills, groceries etc. then go through you credit card statement to get an overview of what you are spending your money for. For every single line item ask yourself this question ‘was this purchase aligned with my financial goals’ if yes continue doing it, if not make a mind note not to do it again. Once you get used to watching your habits, you won’t need the app anymore but if you still want it, it might help you to track your progress but again it will not fix the problem
    2d 2
    • Good point . I don’t think we have any solid goals set yet which itself probably why we are so liberal with our spending . I recently put together a list of expenses just like you have suggested. To be honest I can’t relate our savings , monthly income with that list of expenses and credit card balances . That’s why I thought maybe over few months I can fully understand where the money is spent .
      2d
    • Appnovation / Eng
      cRfy74

      Appnovation Eng

      cRfy74
      Yea I hear you. It’s kinda difficult to make those choices when you don’t have a goal. Sometimes the goal could as simple as, I want to purchase a house in 3 years, this is how much down payment I need to save, then you create a monthly automated transfer to your saving account for this specific goal and enjoy the rest of your money without any guilt. It’s basically setup and forget. I highly suggest “I will teach you to be rich” by Ramit Sethi if you’re just starting out with personal finances
      2d
  • Walmart
    hahaha!

    Go to company page Walmart

    hahaha!
    I know mint because it’s SD question
    2d 0
  • I am on the same page, super bad at managing expenses. I think so far mint helps me understand how bad I spend every month 😭. I am trying to adjust my spending habit 🤞
    2d 3
  • Apple
    ioAF30

    Go to company page Apple

    ioAF30
    Its a good idea early on your career if you don’t care about syncing your accounts with mint. I did it when I used to make 67k in LA 10 years ago. It helped me realize that no matter how much I and my wife save it is not going to be enough. Eventually going for higher income was the only option. We’ve 8x-ed the income since then and we’ve been thrice through the exhilarating moments where we’ve literally increased our budgets for certain categories like travel and shopping 😂. This comes from lifestyle inflation but we felt great about being able to be in a position to spend higher than before. But we did end up developing some habits that stuck with us even today especially food category - our eating out is still under $300 per month as we spend a lot more on groceries and home cooking.

    Since last 3-4 years I’ve stopped looking at my budget since our habits are set. I only track networth on Personal Capital since that is more telling than managing monthly budget in our life stage.

    EDIT: Someone recommended Copilot and I concur but it comes with an annual fee. Use my code to get a month of Copilot free: YQTHAN https://copilot.money/link/y3cb8AfZgpoPB7xm9
    2d 1