I think that the future of these applications is that they’re definitely going to be moving online to a “software as a service” mode, but I’m not sure if now’s the time to make that jump from a desktop to an online version.

One thing that I use Money heavily for is cash flow projections… does anyone know if any of the s/w mentioned manage that especially well?

I tried Mvelopes and it was good but why pay 100+ a year?
I tried BofA’s portfolio manager and it’s alright.
All in all Mint is great for what I need it for.

With that said, I generally like using Web 2.0 applications, so I’ve been thinking of looking up an online expense tracking system that I’d update manually. Provided that I don’t fall into the same trap as you (i.e., not updating the database for a month), I reckon I should be fine.

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/11/12/intuit-exec-explains-what-quicken-users-can-expect-from-mint-com/

“Another big change is that Mint will no longer be powered by Yodlee’s aggregation platform that supports about 12,500 financial institutions, but instead by Intuit’s own platform that supports 14,000 institutions.”

Not saying it’s a positive or negative, but touting Yodlee to defend Mint no longer applies.

Does anyone know of any comparable services that are available in the AU?

One interesting service that I discovered a while ago is moneytracking | http://www.moneytrackin.com/ | while it is not as advanced as Mint, it is very user-friendly and a good way to keep track of spending.

I’ve been using Mint for over a year and I love it. It works with all of my accounts: Bank of America, ING, Chase, Amex, National City, Countrywide (before and after they were bought by BofA), Fidelity and even shows the estimated value of my home.

There are certain times of day when some accounts will not update, but most of the time, they all update without problem.

I use rewards credit cards to purchase most everything and pay off the balances every week or so. Because of this, Mint tracks nearly all of my spending. I love it because it’s so simple and easy to budget using Mint.

Bank of America has similar features to Mint. Both use the Yodlee backend. I check both daily, but actually prefer Mint because it lets me do more with budgeting. It also has a great iphone app.

Afterall, one hacker could hack ING or BoA or USAA and then you’d be fried right?

I guess I just don’t see the distinction.

Mint is very upfront about security. They even tell you how the servers are stored in a security guarded facility with biometric authentication protocols.

I trust ING Direct but I have no idea if their servers are protected by guards. And they’re my actual bank!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/business/smallbusiness/03mint.html?8dpc=&_r=1&pagewanted=all

PS, giving my Bank password to another entity does not sound smart to me. Even if they say they dont transfer money. It takes just one hacker or breach of security or one bad employee, and then you are toast.

I like the acronym K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid)…. Mint.com was becoming more complex and I did not like it anymore. Plus, after tracking my expenses for nearly two years, I figured I had a good idea what my spending habits were like.

John DeFlumeri Jr.

However, I agree with what some others have said about the way it handles ‘income’ categories and how it handles credit card transactions and payments.

So until it does, it looks like more spreadsheets… or maybe I’ll just try a mint alternative.

I use a lot of USAA services and have been able to get most of them to work once I set up the security questions exactly like the 3 selected within each account (one for my wife, one for me). Checking, savings, investment accounts all seem to work. I cannot get USAA credit card account to link up, though. Chase works well. Federal TSP works. TIAA-CREF and Metlife work. They have access to my credit union but my account details are not working – Pentagon Federal CU. It also does not classify investments intelligently, just in a very rudimentary way. ETFs based on non-stocks are treated as a mutual fund just like stock funds. Overall, though, not bad for free!

1. Doesn’t support a lot of banks. Both my local credit union, and the small community bank I just joined are unsupported. Now that they’ve been acquired by Intuit, this problem may get solved, but I won’t know, because I can’t check which banks are supported unless I sign up again.

2. Doesn’t support the envelope system of budgeting.

3. In fact, I’m not sure what system of budgeting it is using. The figures for “amount left over” in each category were somewhat close to what they should have been, but not right. Never could figure out what special algorithm they are using, and I’m not sure why they decided that simply adding and subtracting wouldn’t be good enough.

My finances are complicated, so the solution to managing them must be complex. The idea behind Mint is nice, but I feel much more clear about what I’m doing if I put my own budget in a spreadsheet on Google Docs and track transactions in Quicken 2009. Quicken supports all of my financial institutions and because I have a recent version, it downloads all of the transactions directly.

I also use Quicken for envelope budgeting. All my envelopes are virtual envelopes that make up the balance of one big checking account. I tag each transaction in Quicken to designate which envelope the money is coming out of (or going into). For big deposits (such as paychecks), I split the transaction and tag amounts that correspond to my budget. With a couple of mouse-clicks I can see how much money is left in each “virtual envelope”. The total of all the envelopes is the balance of the account.

That said, I think the point is that you should use whatever works for you. For some people, that’s just a pen and a notebook, for others, it’s not budgeting beyond the 60/40 splits.

On top of that, Jesse’s customer service is first rate – something that seems to be far too rare online. He practices what he preaches, and plows a healthy chunk of the proceeds from YNAB sales right back into the product.

Jeez….I sound like a sales letter – don’t mean to. I just like the guy and his product that much.

Craig Kessler
Marketing Director at BudgetPulse
craig@budgetpulse.com