#37: Mint, The Budget App, Is Shutting Down 😭

MINT IS SHUTTING DOWN JANUARY 1ST 2024!

As an early user of Mint, I’m disappointed that Mint is shutting down.

In this post, I’m going to share what’s going on with Intuit, their decision to shut down Mint, and what app I recommend using since Mint will be shut down.

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Intuit Is Shutting Down Mint

I remember using Mint while I was in college (around 2013). I loved how easy it was to use.

I highly recommended it to anyone who wanted to track their budget with an app that automatically pulls data from linked bank accounts.

Quick History Of Mint

Mint was one of the first budgeting apps available, launching in 2007. Today, it’s the most popular budgeting application with 3.6M average monthly users.

In 2009, Inuit bought Mint from the founders for $170 million. At the time, there were about 1.5 million users.

So Why Is Intuit Shutting Down Mint?

Intuit came to this decision in order to streamline and consolidate their services. For this to happen, Intuit wants to migrate features (and users) from Mint to Credit Karma.

Mint offered free budget services to users and in return made revenue through ads and referrals. Intuit viewed both Mint and Credit Karma as similar apps, but wanted to migrate services to Credit Karma due to the revenue it was making.

Changes To Expect

While Intuit says that features will be migrated over to Credit Karma, not all of Mint’s features will. Unfortunately, one of the most popular features will not be in Credit Karma, which is its budgeting tool to set monthly budgets and by category. 

Credit Karma will allow you to bring the majority of your Mint financial account balances, historical net worth, and 3 years of transactions over to Credit Karma

In case you didn’t know, Credit Karma focuses on offering credit monitoring and personalized recommendations. 

You can read the FAQ about Mint shutting down here.

My Thoughts

While the migrated features are similar in some ways to Mint, Credit Karma is not a replacement to Mint. Mint’s main value proposition is its budgeting tool - to set monthly budgets by categories and to track it in a visually appealing way.

It’s literally known as THE budgeting app. 

In my opinion, I don’t think Intuit will retain the number of users they expected to migrate over since most Mint users expect a budget tool, not solely for credit monitoring (which a lot of banks already offer for free) or recommendations for credit cards and whatnot. 

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App Recommendation

There are a few budget apps that are popular, but I’m not a fan of paying for a subscription unless it really improves my life or productivity like Amazon Prime. Therefore, I’m NOT going to recommend budget apps that require a subscription.

My recommendation for a budget app is Empower (formerly Personal Capital). 

Here’s why I recommend Empower:

1. Empower is FREE! There are other apps that charge a monthly subscription, but I feel that a subscription defeats the point of someone who is focused on budgeting. That’s a huge reason why I recommend Empower. 

2. The app contains A LOT of features similar to Mint - an intuitive dashboard that includes net worth calculation, budget overview by category, cash flow, retirement savings goals, etc. The only difference is that Mint is “prettier” (in my opinion) and it’s more focused on budgeting while Empower is more focused on overall wealth building.

1. Empower offers more than just a budget tool. It also shares data insights such as high individual stock exposure, offers retirement account management, a Personal Cash Account which offers a 4.70% APY, and optional advisor services with a starting management fee of 0.89%, which is low relative to the industry.

Another app that may be helpful to try is Rocket Money. I personally don’t have any experience using it so I can’t provide an in-depth review. However, the app used to be Truebill, the subscription cancellation app, until Rocket acquired it and added budget tools. At the time of this writing, the app is free to use, but optional services in the premium plans cost similar to what other budget apps with subscriptions charge.

Although it’s been years since I used Mint, I used it religiously for years when I was tracking my budget and I thought it was really user-friendly and helpful. It holds a special place in my heart as one of the best apps I’ve used. I know many loyal Mint users are disappointed and I hope this post helps you decide on your next budget app!

My HIGHLY Recommended Apps/Services

• Landlord Insurance for Short Term Rentals (free online quote)

• Accounting/Bookkeeping Software for Real Estate (free)

• Property Management Software (free)

• Find The Right Property Management Company (free)

• Find Cleaners and Calendar Sync (free for 2 listings)

Most Requested Resources

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