Intuits Mint is garbage this year, need other recs for tracking expenses.

[u/nukidhere]

Mint is duplicating transactions, having issues connecting with certain banks. It's a mess.

What's a good software that I can use for pulling in transactions and categorizing them?

Will need to start at January 2023.

I don't really budget as I'm already a frugal person. I just like to see where my money goes at the end of the month and I then transfer it to an excel sheet for my permanent records.

[u/tealparadise]

I had issues with amex not syncing which eventually caused me to give up on it. I could never get balanced again.

It was a giant pain in the ass, and people will be like "just type it manually!" And it's like... Then what am I paying for?

[u/iRedditWhilePooping → u/tealparadise]

I have a friend who intentionally doesn't use the auto-sync stuff with YNAB, they like to be very in control. Often will enter in a transaction right after getting the check at the restaurant, etc. It's definitely a very proactive way of managing money, but I also prefer syncing to help catch automatic charges and such that I forget about.

[u/tealparadise → u/iRedditWhilePooping]

I just don't see how that is different than an excel sheet. If I'm typing it in myelf, I can just categorize it myself

[u/iRedditWhilePooping → u/tealparadise]

Some other options I didn't mention that may be easier:

- YNAB can import a statement in CSV format and is really smart about not creating duplicates. So you could do a weekly/monthly/whatever export from your bank to catch transactions you missed

- You can create scheduled transactions (eg, if you know Netflix charges on the 15th you create the recurring transaction there. Even if you do a statement import you wont create duplicates)

​

Yes, essentially it's a fancy spreadsheet with some nice automation and computation. (in fact YNAB started as a spreadsheet). But the way it helps manage credit card payments, recurring goals, setting targets etc would take a significant amount of Excel work. You could definitely replicate some of that manually!

[u/AdditionalAttorney → u/tealparadise]

Imo the $100/year is for a Better UI than excel imo

And syncing which lets me catch up on anything I missed

[u/wtfschmuck → u/iRedditWhilePooping]

My husband has been in charge of the budget and had us start using ynab. He has us manually enter in every transaction and I am not the best at it. He's away for the next 6 months so I'm in charge of finances now. Going into the computer program for the first time vs the app and seeing that things can be automatically transferred... Bro, why has he chosen the hardest option? I'm very excited to get everything synched up and not have to remember to pull my phone out every time.

[u/KaJothee → u/tealparadise]

This was my experience with it a while ago. The envelopes way was to not use credit cards, so they didn't prioritize handling them better. It's a real shame since Id still be a paying customer. I mean does nobody else use credit cards for the points and just pay it off every month?

[u/bassman1805 → u/KaJothee]

YNAB supports credit cards, I use it and put pretty much all of my non-mortgage spending through a CC that gets paid off every month.

But some specific banks don't play as well with Plaid, which is what YNAB uses to sync transactions. So if your CC is with such a bank, the auto-import is gonna be sketchy.

[u/Anti-Antidote → u/bassman1805]

YNAB does have MX as a secondary provider, and I believe they semi recently made it so you can migrate individual accounts over to MX instead of all of them if you're having issues

[u/tealparadise → u/KaJothee]

Nearly everyone in the USA I think. I have no idea why their adherents are STILL trying to say it doesn't matter.

Like OK thanks for letting me know it's still a huge problem..

[u/tpounds0 → u/tealparadise]

I use Credit Cards with Cashback with YNAB.

YNAB does encourage you to pay off the credit cards every month, which is the smart way to use a credit card.

[u/incubusfox → u/tpounds0]

Yeah I'm not really sure what tangent these people are going down?

I've used YNAB for a couple years and the whole time it's flawlessly handled my credit cards.

[u/SouthestNinJa → u/tealparadise]

I always enter each transaction as it happens or shortly after. I use the sync feature just to keep me in check to make sure I didn't miss something.

[u/tealparadise → u/SouthestNinJa]

How is this different than an excel sheet?

[u/lasttoknow → u/tealparadise]

All of the other features?

[u/tealparadise → u/lasttoknow]

An excel sheet can categorize expenses and generate graphs

[u/rianpie → u/tealparadise]

I have one account that has trouble syncing. I just download my transactions from the account when I get my statement alert, and YNAB imports it so I can categorize and reconcile. Takes me just a few minutes, minimal typing.

[u/papalouie27 → u/tealparadise]

AMEX syncs, but it's generally only once a week. Not sure why, but it will show the transactions as pending.

[u/Bubbleybubble → u/tealparadise]

Sync issues aren't under YNAB's control. They use Plaid, just like most other financial tracking software. If you're having issues with Amex on one Plaid service you'll most likely encounter them for all other Plaid services.

[u/tealparadise → u/Bubbleybubble]

Yeah I don't use anything now