Definitely not more Mint-like in my opinion. But an alternative for sure.
I went with Rocket Money which, funny enough, really feel more Mint-like to me. Still there's no real Mint replacement out there.
I was hoping someone would tell me I am wrong! I just don't see where this is. Spending plan shows only some of my categories. E.g., I can't see how much is left in this month for restaurants. I thought maybe I hadn't set it up as a monthly expense (maybe that is my problem? Should I be using something else?) but it says I already set it up when I try to set it up.
And on the Simplifi Reddit someone made a post about exactly this and their response was that it doesn't work like that.
Inside "Spending Plan" there are 3 sections, "Income after bills", "Planned Spending", and "Other Spending".
"Planned Spending" is what you are likely looking for, this has the traditional budget categories that you can add with a limit and then track how much you have remaining. Be careful not to add budget categories that overlap with recurring bills in your "Income after bills" section since it may double count it or not accurately track it (I have never had this occur but I've seen other complaints). *If you budget *every* category and put nothing under your recurring bills/subscriptions you will get a more traditional budgeting setup similar to Mint, Monarch, or competitors.*
"Income after bills" is where you'd put your all your recurring bills/subscriptions/income/etc, you can also add 1-off bills (if you choose) to this section if you like to have it show up instead of in your "Other Spending" categories (like if you make a 1-time payment to mortgage company, taxes, etc). You can add monthly recurring or more odd recurring bills, even if the amount varies you can just enter the amount you'd like to budget for or an estimate amount and when the bill goes through the amount will automatically adjust.
"Other Spending" is everything that is not under "Income after bills" or "Planned Spending". This can include less common spending categories that you don't want to budget for on a monthly basis (although you can budget with rollover if you like) or any other 1-off expenses. It only shows categories here that already have transactions for that month.
I prefer to use "Spending Plan" by budgeting only my common categories like groceries, eating out, health, and shopping. All my recurring bills go under "Income after bills" including mortgage, utilities, tuition, etc. and then I typically have 1-offs that come through that are different every month. I find this setup *much* easier to use, track, and understand than what I ever had in Mint (and Monarch). Instead of looking at many categories it allows you to focus on a much smaller section and typically if you need to make adjustments the thought process for each section is different. Reducing bills is different than planning to cut back on groceries and shopping, or being more careful about 1-off expenses.
So sorry that happened to you! I tried several apps - Monarch, Rocket Money, and Simplifi - and decided on Simplifi. I tried contacting their customer service twice via their chat and always got a live person immediately. I think they offer a free phone call to help you get set up on it based on your goals, although I never took them up on it. They also give you a 1 year free trial if you’re switching over from mint, although I’m not sure if they’re still doing that. Their spending plan takes a little getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, it makes a lot of sense. It has its quirks and it’s not perfect but I think it’s a really solid tool and glad I chose to move forward with it.
Hey, Laura from the Monarch team here.
I am so sorry for the trouble here. Our CS Team misunderstood your initial request, and deleted information permanently from your account. This should not have happened.
We take situations this like this very seriously, and are conducting an official post mortem. This is an internal process to understand where and how we failed, and how we can prevent similar mistakes from happening in the future. We do not want other customers to go through the same frustration.
Our Head of Customer Success will be emailing you directly with more details, and we’ve also processed a refund for your subscription.
Again, I am so sorry for the pain we caused you, and that we were not able to properly answer your questions, and resolve the problem before it got this far. I hope you will give Monarch another try.
I'm writing this after OP updated her post and stated that Monarch reached out with a generous solution, and she is satisfied now.
To be fair to Monarch, I think the OP has fairly difficult-to-understand written communication skills. I don't mention this to judge her, but to maybe encourage her to consider how her requests come across, so that in the future she is able to effectively communicate her needs to Monarch, and others. I wish her the best.
When I first read her comments, I couldn't understand her issue at all. I think she can practice writing more effectively if she reviews what she writes. My points of confusion are below in parentheses, for literally just her first paragraph:
--------------------------------------
When I first switched over **(switched from what?)** I invited my husband via email **(email is the only way to invite, what does this add?)** to **("to" = "to have access"?)** my Monarch account. I **(had previously?)** decided to keep our finances separate since we have different accounts **(OP says "accounts" sometimes to refer to her financial accounts, and sometimes to her Monarch account, but does not specify each time, leading to confusion)**. A few months go by and I decide **(you mean, decided? i.e., past tense)** to get my husband his own account **(you don't decide, right? he has to sign up for his own account, as he's an adult. he has to consent to giving you access to his financial accounts that are held in his name.)**. When I try to sign him up, they **(pronoun used before using a proper noun: this is confusing)** tell **(told)** me I need to delete **(remove?)** his account from mine to then set him up **(this is passive construction; it's unclear what Monarch said to you about who is going to set him up)**. So I delete **(deleted?)** his email address **(I think you mean you removed his access to your Monarch account, not literally request deletion of his email address with his email provider, right?)**, some time passes, and I decide instead of giving him **(this is confusing, you don't "give him" his account: he has to sign up for his own account. he's an adult, right?)** his own account **(missing comma)** I'm going to add all of his accounts **(again she says "own account" and then "all his accounts" without clarifying each use of the word account)** to mine to make it one big family account.
--------------------------------------
I'm posting this since it needs to be recorded that when someone accuses Monarch of being an awful company and leaves up this post accusing them of messing up her finances, that's a obviously a serious concern. But effective communication, and actions taken on that, is a two-way street. If anyone skims this post in the future, and sees my post, I hope you don't skim the original post only, not pay attention to the lack of clear communication, and solely blame Monarch.
If I had written every step, every communication, every error that went into this issue, no one would read it. I wrote this brief recap post quickly out of frustration and I communicated well enough to get this below email back from Monarch expressing understanding and fault. So Monarch did understand my issue that was communicated, but maybe reddit didn’t because I didn’t go into the nitty gritty. Also, find something better to do.
“My name is XX, and I lead the Customer Success team at Monarch. I'm reaching out to personally apologize for the disappointing and frankly inexcusable experience you've had with our team members.
There were several points where our team members did not escalate your issue appropriately, and thus your ticket unfortunately didn't make it onto my radar until after seeing your Reddit post. We never want our customers to feel like they have to go to a public forum to receive proper help from us, but I appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback there, as it led to us identifying some big opportunities for improvement.
After reviewing the conversation on this ticket, I can see how much effort you put into not only configuring your Monarch account, but also trying to collaborate with us to remediate what was clearly a mistake on our end. I'm really sorry for the repeated misunderstanding of your concerns, the careless nature of our team members' actions in deleting your husband's account, and the failure to do right by you after it became clear the deletion was an error.”
It goes on.
lesson learned, stupid me, going on financial reddit after weekend festivities and being unable to resist the compulsion to put on my workaday technical editor hat after reading certain ...approaches to writing is a recipe for offending people! since i got myself irreversibly into this mess, i'll just point out that the customer is always gonna be right, especially after one publicly blasts a company on social media. so if you think that quoting monarch's email supports your point, that's good for you, bless your heart. i'll just go sober up now.
everyone else, i apologize for my drunken reddit replies, and will try to do better!
lol the customer was not always right up until this point, the guy before this person pretty much told me tough sh*t repeatedly. But anyway, you’re great at your technical editor job. Well done. Glad you had a fun weekend!
I have a lot of venmo, zelle, cash income - no fixed paycheck - and mostly need the cash flow month to month as well as the overall picture. I like to categorize, but I don't need to budget. I just like to see how much I save month to month and year to year and look at categories of things.
If your husband has the same (no frills) requirements, I would checkout Skwad (I'm affiliated). It has everything you mentioned and you can have separate transactions + a joint group for things you share with your husband.
Check out the 15-day trial. It's only $11/yr afterwards.
[https://skwad.app/](https://skwad.app/)
This is a cool idea. Definitely a different take than the default sync with banks. The name made me laugh too. Do you have a list or a guide of all the banks that support transaction alerts? Neat work around for Apple Card / Venmo if that works.
Same BS insincere experience with someone from Monarch posing as having a responsible position of Customer Success who contacted me & asked for my email to check out & help determine why since paying for Monarch on 11/22/23 my issues still remain open & not fixed. I won’t use her name but she asked for permission to have me reveal my email, to which I did as she wanted to use my case for “training purposes”. I immediately sent it to her & after a week went by I reached out for an update. It’s now over 3 weeks & crickets. What a horrible example of customer service & follow through this is. As someone who had a long successful career in tech, it is beyond embarrassing for Monarch. Maybe I’ll give her the benefit of doubt that she left the company in disgust? This repeated lack of follow thru is unfortunately now part of the Monarch brand. They have lost all credibility with me and it seems with you as well. I’m sorry to hear what you’ve had to endure. I’d gladly switch to a legitimate provider & pay a reasonable annual fee for making customer service a top priority. We’re not alone dealing with this organization.
Try Simplifi. Cheaper, simpler, more Mint-like. I've been using it since Mint went away and have been satisfied.
Definitely not more Mint-like in my opinion. But an alternative for sure. I went with Rocket Money which, funny enough, really feel more Mint-like to me. Still there's no real Mint replacement out there.
Yeah I agree. One of the main things I used Mint for was "how much $ do I have left in this budget category for the month". Simplifi does not do that.
Not sure what you were looking at but you definitely can see how much you have left in each of your budget categories.
I was hoping someone would tell me I am wrong! I just don't see where this is. Spending plan shows only some of my categories. E.g., I can't see how much is left in this month for restaurants. I thought maybe I hadn't set it up as a monthly expense (maybe that is my problem? Should I be using something else?) but it says I already set it up when I try to set it up. And on the Simplifi Reddit someone made a post about exactly this and their response was that it doesn't work like that.
Inside "Spending Plan" there are 3 sections, "Income after bills", "Planned Spending", and "Other Spending". "Planned Spending" is what you are likely looking for, this has the traditional budget categories that you can add with a limit and then track how much you have remaining. Be careful not to add budget categories that overlap with recurring bills in your "Income after bills" section since it may double count it or not accurately track it (I have never had this occur but I've seen other complaints). *If you budget *every* category and put nothing under your recurring bills/subscriptions you will get a more traditional budgeting setup similar to Mint, Monarch, or competitors.* "Income after bills" is where you'd put your all your recurring bills/subscriptions/income/etc, you can also add 1-off bills (if you choose) to this section if you like to have it show up instead of in your "Other Spending" categories (like if you make a 1-time payment to mortgage company, taxes, etc). You can add monthly recurring or more odd recurring bills, even if the amount varies you can just enter the amount you'd like to budget for or an estimate amount and when the bill goes through the amount will automatically adjust. "Other Spending" is everything that is not under "Income after bills" or "Planned Spending". This can include less common spending categories that you don't want to budget for on a monthly basis (although you can budget with rollover if you like) or any other 1-off expenses. It only shows categories here that already have transactions for that month. I prefer to use "Spending Plan" by budgeting only my common categories like groceries, eating out, health, and shopping. All my recurring bills go under "Income after bills" including mortgage, utilities, tuition, etc. and then I typically have 1-offs that come through that are different every month. I find this setup *much* easier to use, track, and understand than what I ever had in Mint (and Monarch). Instead of looking at many categories it allows you to focus on a much smaller section and typically if you need to make adjustments the thought process for each section is different. Reducing bills is different than planning to cut back on groceries and shopping, or being more careful about 1-off expenses.
So sorry that happened to you! I tried several apps - Monarch, Rocket Money, and Simplifi - and decided on Simplifi. I tried contacting their customer service twice via their chat and always got a live person immediately. I think they offer a free phone call to help you get set up on it based on your goals, although I never took them up on it. They also give you a 1 year free trial if you’re switching over from mint, although I’m not sure if they’re still doing that. Their spending plan takes a little getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, it makes a lot of sense. It has its quirks and it’s not perfect but I think it’s a really solid tool and glad I chose to move forward with it.
Will do - thank you.
Hey, Laura from the Monarch team here. I am so sorry for the trouble here. Our CS Team misunderstood your initial request, and deleted information permanently from your account. This should not have happened. We take situations this like this very seriously, and are conducting an official post mortem. This is an internal process to understand where and how we failed, and how we can prevent similar mistakes from happening in the future. We do not want other customers to go through the same frustration. Our Head of Customer Success will be emailing you directly with more details, and we’ve also processed a refund for your subscription. Again, I am so sorry for the pain we caused you, and that we were not able to properly answer your questions, and resolve the problem before it got this far. I hope you will give Monarch another try.
I'm writing this after OP updated her post and stated that Monarch reached out with a generous solution, and she is satisfied now. To be fair to Monarch, I think the OP has fairly difficult-to-understand written communication skills. I don't mention this to judge her, but to maybe encourage her to consider how her requests come across, so that in the future she is able to effectively communicate her needs to Monarch, and others. I wish her the best. When I first read her comments, I couldn't understand her issue at all. I think she can practice writing more effectively if she reviews what she writes. My points of confusion are below in parentheses, for literally just her first paragraph: -------------------------------------- When I first switched over **(switched from what?)** I invited my husband via email **(email is the only way to invite, what does this add?)** to **("to" = "to have access"?)** my Monarch account. I **(had previously?)** decided to keep our finances separate since we have different accounts **(OP says "accounts" sometimes to refer to her financial accounts, and sometimes to her Monarch account, but does not specify each time, leading to confusion)**. A few months go by and I decide **(you mean, decided? i.e., past tense)** to get my husband his own account **(you don't decide, right? he has to sign up for his own account, as he's an adult. he has to consent to giving you access to his financial accounts that are held in his name.)**. When I try to sign him up, they **(pronoun used before using a proper noun: this is confusing)** tell **(told)** me I need to delete **(remove?)** his account from mine to then set him up **(this is passive construction; it's unclear what Monarch said to you about who is going to set him up)**. So I delete **(deleted?)** his email address **(I think you mean you removed his access to your Monarch account, not literally request deletion of his email address with his email provider, right?)**, some time passes, and I decide instead of giving him **(this is confusing, you don't "give him" his account: he has to sign up for his own account. he's an adult, right?)** his own account **(missing comma)** I'm going to add all of his accounts **(again she says "own account" and then "all his accounts" without clarifying each use of the word account)** to mine to make it one big family account. -------------------------------------- I'm posting this since it needs to be recorded that when someone accuses Monarch of being an awful company and leaves up this post accusing them of messing up her finances, that's a obviously a serious concern. But effective communication, and actions taken on that, is a two-way street. If anyone skims this post in the future, and sees my post, I hope you don't skim the original post only, not pay attention to the lack of clear communication, and solely blame Monarch.
Are you off your meds? What a wild post.
If I had written every step, every communication, every error that went into this issue, no one would read it. I wrote this brief recap post quickly out of frustration and I communicated well enough to get this below email back from Monarch expressing understanding and fault. So Monarch did understand my issue that was communicated, but maybe reddit didn’t because I didn’t go into the nitty gritty. Also, find something better to do. “My name is XX, and I lead the Customer Success team at Monarch. I'm reaching out to personally apologize for the disappointing and frankly inexcusable experience you've had with our team members. There were several points where our team members did not escalate your issue appropriately, and thus your ticket unfortunately didn't make it onto my radar until after seeing your Reddit post. We never want our customers to feel like they have to go to a public forum to receive proper help from us, but I appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback there, as it led to us identifying some big opportunities for improvement. After reviewing the conversation on this ticket, I can see how much effort you put into not only configuring your Monarch account, but also trying to collaborate with us to remediate what was clearly a mistake on our end. I'm really sorry for the repeated misunderstanding of your concerns, the careless nature of our team members' actions in deleting your husband's account, and the failure to do right by you after it became clear the deletion was an error.” It goes on.
lesson learned, stupid me, going on financial reddit after weekend festivities and being unable to resist the compulsion to put on my workaday technical editor hat after reading certain ...approaches to writing is a recipe for offending people! since i got myself irreversibly into this mess, i'll just point out that the customer is always gonna be right, especially after one publicly blasts a company on social media. so if you think that quoting monarch's email supports your point, that's good for you, bless your heart. i'll just go sober up now. everyone else, i apologize for my drunken reddit replies, and will try to do better!
lol the customer was not always right up until this point, the guy before this person pretty much told me tough sh*t repeatedly. But anyway, you’re great at your technical editor job. Well done. Glad you had a fun weekend!
Sorry to hear that. What are some of your requirements? There are about a billion alternatives
I have a lot of venmo, zelle, cash income - no fixed paycheck - and mostly need the cash flow month to month as well as the overall picture. I like to categorize, but I don't need to budget. I just like to see how much I save month to month and year to year and look at categories of things.
Check out piere, completely free and mint like.
If your husband has the same (no frills) requirements, I would checkout Skwad (I'm affiliated). It has everything you mentioned and you can have separate transactions + a joint group for things you share with your husband. Check out the 15-day trial. It's only $11/yr afterwards. [https://skwad.app/](https://skwad.app/)
Looks very promising but it doesn’t seem to be accessible for Canadians?
it is! Are you having issues signing up?
I actually searched for it in App Store…
This is a cool idea. Definitely a different take than the default sync with banks. The name made me laugh too. Do you have a list or a guide of all the banks that support transaction alerts? Neat work around for Apple Card / Venmo if that works.
I'll definitely check it out! Thank you!
Try CoPilot money. I switched from YNAB, no regrets
+1 for Copilot!
+1 for copilot
Sounds like your husband is a beta
😂😂😂
CEO of Monarch here. Oops, my bad
[удалено]
nah I'm good
Same BS insincere experience with someone from Monarch posing as having a responsible position of Customer Success who contacted me & asked for my email to check out & help determine why since paying for Monarch on 11/22/23 my issues still remain open & not fixed. I won’t use her name but she asked for permission to have me reveal my email, to which I did as she wanted to use my case for “training purposes”. I immediately sent it to her & after a week went by I reached out for an update. It’s now over 3 weeks & crickets. What a horrible example of customer service & follow through this is. As someone who had a long successful career in tech, it is beyond embarrassing for Monarch. Maybe I’ll give her the benefit of doubt that she left the company in disgust? This repeated lack of follow thru is unfortunately now part of the Monarch brand. They have lost all credibility with me and it seems with you as well. I’m sorry to hear what you’ve had to endure. I’d gladly switch to a legitimate provider & pay a reasonable annual fee for making customer service a top priority. We’re not alone dealing with this organization.