If you’re looking for something that helps you be more proactive with your money, or that simply helps you stay on top of a tighter budget, you may need to look elsewhere. In the end, Mint is a good tool for someone who consistently and comfortably spends less than they earn, has automated their savings and is on track for their major goals, and wants a simple way to make sure that they’re staying within some general spending limits. Your budget is fairly static, which doesn’t always fit the realities of life. The biggest downside is that Mint doesn’t do much to help you plan ahead for irregular or one-time expenses, and it isn’t great at navigating the natural ebb and flow of month-to-month spending. You can then track your spending in each category as you progress through the month, and you can also look back at past months to get a sense for your average spending over time. You link all of your accounts, Mint automatically pulls in all of your transactions, and all you have to do is specify which budget categories they fall into. It’s also very good at helping you track your spending. But there is no cost for just using the budgeting app. They make money through ads and by recommending financial products - like banks and credit cards - which certainly has its downsides. One of Mint’s big draws is that it’s free. Mint has been around for years and, in my experience, seems to be the most widely used budgeting app. They have very different approaches to budgeting and this should give you a better sense for which app is right for you. There are a lot of budgeting apps that can help you do this and today we’ll look at two of the major players: Mint and You Need a Budget. Most of us have tried and failed to stick to a monthly budget at least once in our lives, and many of us have come to have a strong dislike for the word “budget” as a result.īut we all have important financial goals that we want to achieve, and one way or another we need some kind of system that helps us both put money towards those goals and have enough for daily necessities.

You need a budget vs every dollar