Mint App Review: A Financial Dashboard, But Not The Best Budgeting App

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UPDATE: On October 31, 2023, Mint.com announced that Mint will no longer be available as of January 1, 2024. Many of Mint's features will roll over to be part of the Credit Karma.

Are you someone who constantly worries about the state of your finances? Do you find yourself struggling to keep track of your monthly bills, and expenses?

If yes, then the Mint app might be a game-changer for you. This free budgeting app is designed to help you stay on top of your finances by helping you track your spending, set budgets, and receive reminders for bill payments.

In this Mint review we will cover the pros and cons of using the Mint budgeting app, its key features, how the free app compares to other budgeting apps, whether the app is truly "completely free," and whether Mint might be the best budgeting app for you.

Pros And Cons Of The Mint Budgeting App

Mint App Pros

  • Free to use
  • Easy to set up and use
  • Connects to all of your financial accounts
  • Tracks your spending and income
  • Helps you set budgets and reach your financial goals
  • Offers a variety of features to help you save money, such as bill reminders, budget alerts, and savings goals
  • Provides free credit score monitoring
  • Offers educational resources to help you learn more about personal finance

Mint App Cons

  • Ads. Lots and lots of ads.
  • Mint can miscategorize transactions that require manual fixing
  • Unavailable for offline use
  • Can be overwhelming for beginners
  • Some users have reported problems with account synchronization and Mint customer service
  • Mint is owned by Intuit, which is also the parent company of TurboTax. Some users have expressed concerns about Intuit's privacy practices.
Mint App Review - Ads Display Next To Your Transactions
I feel attacked seeing an ad for life insurance next to my purchase of a 44 oz. soda.

Overview of Key Features

Connect Your Financial Accounts

Mint excels at connecting with a broad range of financial institutions and probably works with all your financial accounts including your bank accounts, savings account, checking account, brokerage accounts, personal loans, retirement accounts, and investment accounts to your own Mint account. This enables Mint to show you information about your financial health and net worth. This makes it a convenient way to see your credit card debt,

Expense Tracking

The Mint app offers robust expense tracking features, making it easier than ever to take charge of your finances. With the app, users can set budgets for different categories, create budgets, track their spending, and even receive alerts when they're nearing their budget limits.

This feature is especially helpful for those who struggle to keep their spending in check or want to save money for a particular goal. Mint's budget tracking feature is highly customizable.

Users can create personalized budgets for each category and adjust them as needed. For instance, if someone spends more on groceries one month than another, they can simply increase their grocery budget limit for that month.

This level of customization allows users to tailor the app to suit their individual financial needs. The real-time tracking capabilities of the Mint app enable users to see exactly where their money is going at any given moment.

Mint automatically categorizes transactions and provides detailed breakdowns of spending by category and merchant. This information makes it easy to identify areas where you may be overspending and adjust accordingly.

Bill Reminders: Never Miss a Payment Again

Late fees can add up quickly and cause unnecessary stress in daily life. Fortunately, the Mint app offers a bill reminders feature that sends alerts when upcoming bills are due so that users never miss a payment again.

Users can add bills directly into the app with ease, so there's no need to manually enter due dates or amounts every time a bill comes in. Additionally, Mint syncs with your bank account so you'll always have an accurate picture of your account balance when planning out payments.

Credit Score Monitoring: Stay on Top of Your Credit Health

Maintaining a good credit score is essential for anyone looking to secure loans or mortgages in the future. With Mint's free credit score access and monitoring feature, users can stay on top of any changes to their credit score and quickly identify any potential fraud or errors in their credit report. The app provides free credit score updates from Equifax, which is one of the three major credit reporting agencies.

Users can view a detailed breakdown of their credit report and receive alerts when there are any significant changes. By monitoring their credit health with Mint, users can take proactive steps to improve their score and avoid future financial setbacks.

These features offered by Mint make it an excellent solution for anyone looking to take control of their finances. The app's budget tracking, bill reminders, and credit score monitoring features provide users with valuable tools that make it easier than ever to manage money effectively.

Investment Tracking: Plan for Your Future

Investing can be a great way to grow your wealth - but it can also be overwhelming and confusing, especially if you're new to the game. That's where Mint's investment tracking feature comes in. By linking your investment accounts to the app, you can easily monitor your portfolio performance and track market trends.

This not only helps you stay informed about your investments but also makes it easier to identify areas of investment portfolio where you may want to make adjustments. Personally, I'm not a big investor - but even I find this feature helpful.

It takes the guesswork out of managing investments and ensures that I have all the information I need at my fingertips. For anyone who is serious about investing, this is definitely a valuable tool that shouldn't be overlooked.

Personalized Savings Tips

One of the most impressive features of Mint is its ability to provide personalized savings tips based on user data. Mint says, "by analyzing over 5 billion transactions from 25 million users, these personalized Mintsights can help customers save money." With access to a user's financial information, Mint can analyze spending patterns and suggest ways to save money on everyday purchases. This is the future of money management – using technology to create personalized solutions for individual users. This can be helpful, assuming you're ok with Mint analyzing your entire financial life.

For example, if you spend a lot of money on groceries every month, Mint might suggest switching to a cheaper grocery store or buying generic brands instead of name-brand products. If you're spending too much money eating out, the app might suggest cooking at home more often or finding restaurants with lower prices.

These personalized savings tips are invaluable for anyone trying to stick to a budget and save money. By taking advantage of these suggestions, users can cut down their expenses without sacrificing quality of life.

Is Mint A Good Budgeting App?

Despite its popularity as a personal finance app (~25 million users), it's hard to recommend Mint as one of the best budgeting apps when there are others like YNAB and EveryDollar that provide more value and features than a free budgeting app like Mint.

Read my article about why I recommend YNAB over Mint for serious budgeters.

Mint Budgeting App: How Does It Stack Up?

Mint is among the most popular budgeting apps. However, its actual budgeting features are sparse compared with more focused budgeting apps like YNAB or EveryDollar. Mint works best when you use it to review all your accounts and past transactions and as a sort of high-level dashboard for viewing your net worth.

Security Features

Your Financial Information Is Safe with Your Mint Account

One concern many people have when it comes to financial apps is security. Fortunately, Mint takes security very seriously and uses bank-level encryption to protect user data.

This means that your financial information is protected from hackers and other unauthorized users. In addition to encryption, Mint also offers two-factor authentication as an added security measure.

Multi-factor authentication requires users to enter a unique code sent via text message or email in order to access their accounts. This ensures that even if someone manages to obtain your username and password, they won't be able to access your financial information online accounts without the code.

These security features make Mint one of the safest financial apps available today. Users can trust that their sensitive information is being protected at all times.

User Experience

The Good

Another aspect of Mint that sets it apart from other financial apps is its user experience. The app's clean, intuitive interface makes it easy to navigate and find what you're looking for...usually. At least with some practice.

From the home screen, users can quickly see an overview of their finances, including account balances and spending trends. One of Mint's best features is its ability to automatically categorize transactions.

This means that each time you make a purchase, the app will categorize it appropriately (e.g. groceries, entertainment, gas) without any manual input required. This makes tracking expenses much easier and allows users to get a clear picture of where their money is going. Of course, this automatic categorizations is not always accurate, so depending on how much you care, you'll want to manually review your transactions often and make any required corrections.

The Bad

Although the design feels clean, there are problems with the Mint interface. The app is noticeably slower to load on my phone than YNAB, another popular budgeting app. Additionally, Mint is unusable without an internet connection, and it feels like the mobile app is basically a website.

Mint App - Mint Doesn't Work Offline

How Is Mint A Free Budgeting App?

Having a Mint account and using their free budgeting app may not be completely free depending on how you look at it. It is free in the sense that you will not pay Mint's parent company any money to use the free app. There is no Mint Premium version. There is only a free version. So how does Mint make money? Ads. In fact, there is no ad free version.

Who Is Mint Good For?

Honestly, Mint is good for people who don't want to be that involved in budgeting their money, but who do want a convenient way to casually check up on their overall financial picture, spending history, and net worth from time to time. The features in Mint dedicated to budgeting are pretty sparse. It's more of a dashboard than a budget. I would not even consider Mint to be a budgeting app, per se. Instead, it's a personal finance overview app and a platform for selling you financial services.

If you are trying to build your credit or if closely monitoring your credit score is important to you, Mint's credit monitoring tools might appeal to you.

Mint is more likely to provide casual insights about your financial data IF you review it often. If you're looking for an app to support your efforts to change financial behavior, you might want to check out other apps like YNAB or EveryDollar.

Conclusion

Mint tracks your spending and net worth. It can be useful for analyzing your spending habits in hindsight. It offers personalized solutions (via ads and affiliate offers) for individual users while also prioritizing security and usability. With features like personalized savings tips based on user data analysis, bank-level encryption for data protection, and an easy-to-use interface that automates expense tracking, Mint takes the stress out of managing your money. It is not the best solution for people looking to change their financial behaviors or keep a serious budget.

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