The Day the Mint Stopped: How Losing My Budget App Led Me to a Better Financial Life

Introduction: An Unexpected Financial Eviction

It started like any other Tuesday.

With a fresh cup of coffee in hand, I opened my laptop and navigated to Mint.com, a digital ritual I’d performed almost daily for the better part of a decade.¹

Mint was more than just an app; it was my financial command center, a meticulously organized digital ledger holding years of my family’s financial life.

It had seen us through paying off a mortgage, navigating a cross-country move, and tracking countless goals.

It was familiar, comfortable, and, I thought, permanent.

Then, the news broke.

Intuit, the financial software behemoth that acquired Mint in 2009, announced it was shutting the service down for good as of March 23, 2024.²

My digital home was being condemned.

The Great Migration Mandate

The official directive was not a closure but a “reimagining”.⁴

Intuit was urging its millions of devoted users to migrate their financial lives to another of its properties: Credit Karma.

The company promised a seamless transition, allowing users to move account balances, historical net worth data, and three years of transactions.²

But as the details emerged, a jarring reality set in.

This wasn’t an upgrade; it was an eviction to a lesser property.

The most critical functions that formed the very soul of Mint—the detailed, customizable monthly budgeting tools—were not making the journey.

Credit Karma, a platform fundamentally designed to monitor credit scores and recommend debt products, would offer a high-level overview of spending and net worth, but it would not, and could not, replace Mint’s core purpose.³

For the millions of us who relied on Mint to actively manage our monthly cash flow, this was a deal-breaker.

Making matters worse was the nature of the migration itself.

Users who followed the prompts to “link” their accounts discovered it was a “full-stop hard migration”.⁴

Once you made the move to Credit Karma, the door to your Mint account slammed shut forever.

There was no going back, no opportunity to reconsider.

Your data was moved, and your old home was demolished.⁴

A Community in Uproar

The reaction from the user community was swift and visceral.

Across forums like Reddit, a sense of betrayal was palpable.

Users who had invested years, sometimes over a decade, meticulously categorizing transactions and building a rich financial history felt abandoned.¹

One user lamented, “Budgets? All the different views on spending? All gone as of now”.⁴

Another expressed the collective feeling of powerlessness: “I’m at a loss.

I’m pretty upset at how this went and now I can’t go back after the ‘link'”.⁴

The consensus was clear: we were being “hung out to dry”.⁵

This corporate decision was not about serving the needs of Mint’s dedicated user base.

It was a strategic consolidation.

Intuit’s business model for free services like Mint and Credit Karma relies on generating revenue through advertising and referral offers for financial products.⁴

By funneling Mint’s reported 3.6 million active users into the Credit Karma ecosystem, Intuit could streamline its operations and focus on the more lucrative business of generating leads for loans and credit cards—a model that has little use for the detailed budgeting tools that help people reduce their reliance on such products.⁴

The users weren’t the customers; we were the product being moved to a more profitable warehouse.

And yet, as I navigated the initial shock and frustration, a new feeling began to emerge.

Perhaps this forced eviction wasn’t a catastrophe.

Perhaps it was a “blessing in disguise”.¹¹

It was a mandatory, industry-wide prompt to ask a critical question: Was the “Mint way” of managing money really the best way? This shutdown wasn’t just an end; it was an opportunity—a chance to re-evaluate not just our tools, but our entire philosophy of financial management, and to search for something fundamentally better.

Part I: The Illusion of Control: Why My Budget Was Broken Before Mint Was

For years, I operated under the illusion of control.

I was a diligent Mint user.

I logged in, I categorized, I reviewed the colorful pie charts.

I had perfect data.

I could tell you exactly how much we spent on groceries in July of 2018 or what our net worth was on any given day.

But if I was being honest with myself, this meticulous record-keeping wasn’t translating into meaningful progress.

We were financially stable, but we felt stuck in a state of financial drift.

The shutdown forced me to confront why.

The Rearview Mirror Analogy

Managing your finances with a tool like Mint is like trying to drive a car forward while looking only in the rearview mirror.

The view is crystal clear.

You can see every mile you’ve traveled, every turn you’ve made, every pothole you’ve hit.

The app gives you a perfect, categorized history of where your money has been.

But it offers almost no guidance on the road ahead.

You’re simply reacting to a journey that’s already over.

This is the fundamental nature of passive expense tracking.

It is a reactive process, not a proactive one.

It tells you what you spent, not what you have available to spend.¹³

It provides a historical record, an “exam result” that grades your past performance, rather than a “lesson plan” that prepares you for the future.¹³

You look at the report at the end of the month, see you overspent on dining out, feel a pang of regret, and resolve to “do better” next month—a cycle of spend-track-regret that rarely leads to lasting behavioral change.

The Psychology of Passive Tracking

The insidious nature of this method is that it feels productive.

The act of categorizing transactions and reviewing reports creates a sense of engagement.

But it’s a false sense of control.

The automation that made Mint so convenient was also its greatest weakness.

As one former Mint user who switched to a more active system put it, “Mint allowed me to check out a little bit…

All of the automated processes were making us LESS aware of our spending, even though I was looking at it at least a couple of times a week”.¹⁵

The psychological disconnect happens at the point of purchase.

When you’re standing in a store or browsing online, the decision to spend is detached from its budgetary consequence.

Your Mint budget is an abstract concept back on your computer, a report you’ll look at later.

The only immediate data point is your bank account balance, which tells you what you can spend, not what you should spend according to your goals.

Because the system fails to influence the key decision-making moments, it becomes a tool for financial archaeology rather than financial architecture.¹³

We conflate having information with having intention, and that is where the system breaks down.

The Flaw in the “Free” Model

This passive philosophy is inextricably linked to the “free” business model that ultimately sealed Mint’s fate.

A service that is free to the user must generate revenue elsewhere.

For Mint, this meant advertising and referral fees for financial products.⁷

This created what Val Agostino, Mint’s first product manager and now the CEO of Monarch Money, calls “misaligned incentives”.⁷

The platform’s primary goal was not necessarily to help you spend less or save more, but to gather enough data about your financial habits to effectively market other products to you, particularly credit cards and loans that offered the highest referral fees.⁷

Furthermore, the economics of running a free app that relies on expensive, third-party data aggregators to connect to thousands of banks is challenging.⁷

This financial pressure meant a chronic underinvestment in the core user experience.

For years, Mint users complained about persistent synchronization issues, unreliable connections, and nonexistent customer support.⁶

The “free” price tag was paid for with frustration, unreliability, and the knowledge that our sensitive financial data was the real currency being traded.⁷

The shutdown was the logical conclusion of a business model that never truly put the user first.

It was time to find a model that did.

Part II: The Proactive Revolution: A Mindset Shift from Accounting to Architecting

My search for a Mint replacement quickly became a search for a new philosophy.

I realized I didn’t just need a new dashboard; I needed a new way of thinking about money.

This led me to the world of proactive budgeting, a concept most powerfully embodied by the Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB) method.

It was a revelation that transformed my financial management from a backward-looking accounting exercise into a forward-looking act of architecture.

Demystifying Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB)

At its core, Zero-Based Budgeting is built on a deceptively simple formula: Income−Expenses=0.¹⁶

This doesn’t mean you should spend every penny until your account balance is zero.

It means you must give every single dollar a “job” or a purpose

before the month begins.¹⁶

Your income is a finite resource, and you are the architect who decides, in advance, how that resource will be deployed to build the life you want.

The most intuitive way to understand this is the “virtual envelope” analogy.²⁰

Imagine at the start of the month, you withdraw your entire paycheck in cash.

You then take a stack of envelopes and label them: “Mortgage,” “Groceries,” “Car Insurance,” “Vacation Fund,” “Debt Payment,” “Retirement Savings.” You physically place the required amount of cash into each envelope.

For the rest of the month, your spending decisions are simple.

When you go to the grocery store, you can only spend the money that is in the “Groceries” envelope.

If the envelope is empty, you can’t spend more—unless you make a conscious decision to take money from another envelope, like “Dining O.T.”

This method forces you to confront the reality of trade-offs in real-time.

Unlike traditional budgeting where you might just adjust last month’s numbers, ZBB requires you to justify every expense from a “zero base” every single month.²¹

This constant re-evaluation ensures your spending is always aligned with your

current priorities, not the ghosts of budgets past, effectively preventing the slow, unnoticed “lifestyle creep” that can derail long-term goals.

The Psychological Transformation

The most profound change that comes with adopting a proactive, zero-based approach is psychological.

It fundamentally reframes your relationship with money and budgeting.

Many people view a budget as a financial straitjacket, a tool of restriction designed to highlight what you can’t do.²³

A proactive budget is the exact opposite.

It’s a plan that grants you permission to spend.

By intentionally setting aside money for “Fun,” “Hobbies,” or “Vacations,” you are free to spend that money completely guilt-free.²⁴

The plan accounts for it, so there is no remorse, no second-guessing.

It transforms spending from a source of anxiety into an expression of your values.

This approach also eliminates the dread many people feel when looking at their bank account balance.

With a proactive budget, your account balance is largely irrelevant to your daily spending decisions.

Your budget tells you what you have available to spend in any given category, not your account balance.²⁶

This clarity provides an incredible sense of control and peace of mind.

The central question shifts from a reactive “Can I afford this?” to a proactive “How does this purchase align with my plan?”

This shift from passive observation to active direction is what empowers people to achieve remarkable results.

Users of proactive budgeting systems consistently report paying off significant debt, building substantial savings, and reducing money-related stress in their relationships.²⁷

They stop being accountants of their past and become architects of their future.

Part III: A Guided Tour of the New Financial Landscape

Armed with this new philosophy, I embarked on a deep dive into the burgeoning market of Mint alternatives.

The landscape is no longer dominated by a single, free, one-size-fits-all solution.

Instead, it has fragmented into a range of specialized, subscription-based tools, each with a distinct philosophy and target user.

After extensive testing and analysis, five clear contenders emerged.

A. Quicken Simplifi: The Familiar Upgrade

• The Pitch: From the makers of Quicken, one of the oldest names in personal finance, Simplifi is positioned as the most direct and logical upgrade for former Mint users. It offers a clean, modern, mobile-first experience that prioritizes simplicity and ease of use without a steep learning curve.²⁹
• My Experience: Setting up Simplifi feels intuitive and welcoming. The app guides you through linking accounts, and its core “Spending Plan” feature is a smart, flexible take on budgeting.³³ It automatically projects your income and recurring bills, showing you what’s left for discretionary spending. It strikes a great balance, feeling more powerful than Mint but far less rigid and demanding than a strict ZBB app. User reports consistently praise its reliable bank connections and more powerful reporting tools, two areas where Mint often faltered.¹² It truly feels like what Mint could have been with proper investment and development.
• Key Features:

• Spending Plan: An automated cash flow projection that shows available funds after income and bills.
• Custom Watchlists: Allows you to track spending by specific categories, payees, or tags.³⁴
• Refund Tracker: A unique and handy feature to mark transactions for which you’re expecting a refund.²⁹
• Multi-User Sharing: You can share access with a spouse or financial advisor.²⁹
• Strong Bill Detection: Does a good job of automatically identifying recurring income and bills.²⁹

• Ideal User: The pragmatic Mint refugee. This user loved the convenience of Mint’s automated tracking but was frustrated by its bugs and lack of support. They want a better, more reliable version of what they had without needing to learn a whole new budgeting religion.
• The Verdict: Quicken Simplifi is the safe harbor in the post-Mint storm. It’s an affordable, rock-solid, and highly capable application that offers a significant upgrade in reliability and features without demanding a significant change in user behavior. It is arguably the best like-for-like replacement on the market.

B. Monarch Money: The Command Center

• The Pitch: Monarch Money has a unique pedigree: it was co-founded by Val Agostino, Mint’s very first product manager.⁷ His stated goal was to build the premium, ad-free, user-focused financial dashboard that Mint was never able to become due to its business model. It is designed to be a holistic command center for your entire financial life.⁷
• My Experience: The migration from Mint to Monarch is remarkably smooth, thanks to a custom Chrome extension designed specifically for this purpose.²⁹ Once set up, the dashboard is impressive. It provides a comprehensive, at-a-glance view of your cash flow, budget, investments, and net worth. Its integrations are a standout feature, automatically pulling in values for real estate from Zillow and vehicles by VIN, giving you a true, up-to-date picture of your total net worth.²⁰ Where Monarch truly excels is in its “multiplayer mode.” It is built from the ground up for couples and families, allowing each person to have their own login while sharing a unified view of household finances, with the ability to keep certain accounts private.³⁷
• Key Features:

• Holistic Dashboard: A single screen showing cash flow, budgets, investments, goals, and net worth.
• Advanced Investment Tracking: Tracks holdings, performance, and allocation across all your accounts.¹¹
• Goals Feature: A robust tool for setting and tracking progress toward major financial goals.²⁹
• Best-in-Class Collaboration: Invite a partner or financial advisor with separate logins at no extra cost.¹¹
• Powerful Transaction Rules: Highly customizable rules for automatically categorizing transactions.³⁰
• Data Visualization: Includes insightful visuals like Sankey diagrams to show the flow of your money.³⁵
• Ad-Free and Private: A subscription model means your data isn’t sold and you see no ads or product upsells.⁷

• Ideal User: The data-driven individual, couple, or family. This user wants a single, powerful application to track and plan everything, from daily spending and budgets to long-term investment performance and net worth. They are willing to pay a premium for a feature-rich, ad-free experience.
• The Verdict: Monarch Money is the true successor to Mint for the power user. It is more expensive than its competitors, but it delivers a premium, comprehensive, and beautifully designed experience that justifies the cost for those who want one tool to rule them all.⁴¹

C. YNAB (You Need A Budget): The Method and the Movement

• The Pitch: YNAB is fundamentally different from every other app on this list. It is less a piece of software and more a complete financial methodology packaged in an app.²⁷ It is built entirely around the four rules of Zero-Based Budgeting, designed to force a radical shift in your relationship with money and give you absolute, granular control.²⁰
• My Experience: There is no sugarcoating it: YNAB has a notoriously steep learning curve.²⁹ The first few hours, or even days, can feel confusing and restrictive. But then, there’s an “aha!” moment when the philosophy clicks. The act of proactively assigning every dollar a job before you spend it is transformative. It shifts your mindset from passively tracking the past to actively designing the future. User testimonials are filled with stories of people paying off tens of thousands of dollars in debt and breaking the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.¹⁵ It is incredibly powerful for driving behavioral change. However, its laser focus on budgeting comes at a cost; its investment tracking and high-level reporting features are weak compared to Monarch or Empower.²⁰
• Key Features:

• Zero-Based Budgeting: The entire app is built around the “Give Every Dollar a Job” philosophy.⁴¹
• Loan Planner: A powerful tool to create and track debt payoff strategies.
• Detailed Goal Setting: Set specific targets for categories and track your progress.
• Hands-On Transaction Management: Encourages manual entry and reconciliation to increase awareness.
• Unmatched Educational Resources: YNAB provides extensive workshops, videos, articles, and a massive, highly engaged user community to support you.⁴¹

• Ideal User: The person who feels their finances are out of control. This user is likely struggling with debt, living paycheck-to-paycheck, or simply feels a constant sense of financial anxiety. They are ready for a major change and are willing to invest the time and effort to learn a new system that promises profound results.
• The Verdict: YNAB is not a Mint replacement; it is a financial intervention. It is the most powerful tool on the market for mastering your cash flow and changing your financial habits from the ground up. If you commit to the method, it can change your life.

D. Empower (formerly Personal Capital): The Investment Watchtower

• The Pitch: Empower offers a suite of powerful financial tracking tools with a unique price tag: free. Its primary focus is not on day-to-day budgeting but on providing a high-level dashboard for tracking investments and overall net worth.²
• My Experience: Linking accounts to Empower’s dashboard is straightforward, and the value is immediately apparent. The platform provides institutional-grade tools that were once inaccessible to the average person. The Retirement Planner is exceptional, allowing you to run complex scenarios to see if you’re on track.⁴⁷ The Investment Checkup tool analyzes your portfolio for hidden fees and improper allocation. It is, without a doubt, the best free tool for a holistic financial overview. However, its budgeting capabilities are rudimentary. You can track your cash flow and set a single, overall monthly spending limit, but you cannot create and track budgets for individual categories like “Groceries” or “Gas”.⁴⁷ This makes it an incomplete solution for anyone who was a dedicated Mint budgeter.
• Key Features:

• Free to Use: All dashboard and tracking features are completely free.⁴⁴
• Excellent Investment Tracking: See all your 401(k)s, IRAs, and brokerage accounts in one place, with detailed analysis of performance, allocation, and fees.⁴⁷
• Robust Retirement Planner: A powerful tool to forecast your retirement readiness.³⁵
• Comprehensive Net Worth Dashboard: A clear, real-time view of your assets and liabilities.⁴⁸
• Basic Spending Tracker: Automatically categorizes transactions and shows cash flow trends.⁵¹

• Ideal User: The investor. This person’s primary financial goal is to monitor their portfolio, track their progress toward retirement, and maintain a clear view of their net worth. For them, detailed monthly budgeting is a secondary concern. Many users find it’s the perfect companion to a dedicated budgeting app like YNAB or Simplifi.⁵³
• The Verdict: Empower is the best free financial dashboard available, period. Its investment and retirement planning tools are unparalleled in the free market. It is a phenomenal tool for wealth tracking, but it is not a true budgeting app.

E. Copilot Money: The Art of Finance

• The Pitch: Copilot Money is a beautifully designed, modern budgeting app built exclusively for the Apple ecosystem (iOS and macOS). It aims to make the often-tedious task of managing money feel engaging, intuitive, and even fun.²⁹
• My Experience: The first thing you notice about Copilot is its stunning user interface. It is slick, fast, and a genuine pleasure to use.²⁹ The design is thoughtful, with clever visualizations for recurring expenses and a handy “to review” section that makes checking in on your transactions quick and easy.²⁹ The app is highly customizable with icons and colors, which makes the experience feel personal. However, its beauty is currently only skin deep in some areas. Its biggest limitation is its platform exclusivity; there is no web or Android app, which is a non-starter for a huge portion of users.²⁹ Furthermore, many features that are standard in competing apps, like detailed reporting or savings goals, are still listed as “in development,” making the product feel less mature.³⁶
• Key Features:

• Stellar UI/UX: Widely considered the best-looking and most engaging interface in the category.²⁹
• Native Apple Experience: Includes a standalone Mac app and deep integration with the Apple ecosystem, including excellent support for the Apple Card.³⁶
• Smart Visualizations: Does a great job of visualizing recurring expenses and monthly spending trends.²⁹
• Integrations: Optional integrations with Amazon and Venmo provide more granular transaction data.²⁹

• Ideal User: The design-conscious Apple loyalist. This user values aesthetics and a seamless user experience above all else. They are willing to overlook a less comprehensive feature set and the lack of cross-platform support in exchange for an app that they genuinely enjoy using every day.
• The Verdict: Copilot is a triumph of design and a joy to use, but its functional limitations and Apple-only availability keep it from being a top contender for most people. It is a promising app with a bright future, but for now, it’s a niche player for a specific type of user.

Part IV: The Ultimate Mint Alternative Comparison Matrix

While the narrative reviews offer depth and context, a direct, side-by-side comparison can provide the clarity needed for a final decision.

This matrix synthesizes the key attributes of each leading alternative, allowing you to quickly identify the platform that best aligns with your financial philosophy, needs, and budget.

The process of choosing a new financial tool is no longer about finding a direct replacement for a generalist app like Mint; it is about understanding the specialized strengths of a maturing market and selecting the tool that best serves your primary financial goal.

Feature	Quicken Simplifi	Monarch Money	YNAB (You Need A Budget)	Empower	Copilot Money
Core Philosophy	Simple, automated cash flow planning. A modern, reliable take on traditional budgeting.	A holistic, all-in-one financial command center for tracking and planning.	Proactive Zero-Based Budgeting. A strict methodology for behavioral change.	A free, high-level dashboard focused on investment tracking and net worth.	A design-first, engaging user experience for the Apple ecosystem.
Ideal User Profile	The pragmatic Mint user wanting a familiar but better experience without a steep learning curve.	The data-driven individual or couple wanting one powerful tool for all aspects of their finances.	The person seeking to break the debt cycle, stop living paycheck-to-paycheck, and gain total control.	The investor whose primary goal is tracking their portfolio and retirement readiness.	The Apple user who prioritizes a beautiful, fun, and intuitive interface over the broadest feature set.
Pricing (Annual)	$47.88 ($3.99/month) 44	$99.99 ($8.33/month) 41	$109 ($9.08/month) 41	Free 41	$95 ($7.92/month) 44
Investment Tracking	Basic (shows balances and simple performance) 58	Excellent (tracks holdings, performance, and allocation) 11	Poor (manual tracking only; not a focus) 43	Best-in-Class (detailed analysis, fee analyzer, retirement planner) 35	Good (connects to investment accounts for balance tracking) 55
Net Worth Tracking	Yes 36	Excellent (includes real estate via Zillow and vehicle values) 20	Basic (manually tracked accounts) 43	Excellent (primary function of the dashboard) 48	Yes 55
Multi-User/Family	Yes (share with one other person) 29	Best-in-Class (separate logins for partners/advisors) 11	Yes (YNAB Together allows up to 6 users) 41	Yes (share dashboard with up to 5 people) 41	No
Mint Data Import	Yes (CSV import) 34	Yes (dedicated Chrome extension and CSV import) 29	Yes (CSV import) 61	No 62	No 56
Key Strength	Ease of use and affordability; the most direct Mint upgrade.	The most comprehensive all-in-one feature set, especially for couples.	Unmatched for creating intentionality and driving behavioral change.	The best free tool for investment and net worth tracking on the market.	A beautiful, engaging, and joyful user experience on Apple devices.
Key Weakness	Less powerful investment tools than competitors.	Higher price point.	Steep learning curve and weak investment tracking.	Very basic hands-on budgeting tools.	Apple ecosystem only; less mature feature set.

Part V: Finding Your New Financial Home: A Personalized Recommendation

My journey through the ashes of Mint led me to a profound realization: I had been a financial accountant when I needed to be a financial architect.

I was an expert at documenting the past but a novice at designing the future.

For me, the choice became clear.

I needed a tool that forced intentionality.

While Monarch Money was incredibly impressive as a holistic dashboard, I ultimately chose YNAB.

The methodology was the medicine I needed.

The initial learning curve was real, but the clarity and control it provided were life-changing.

It taught me not just to track my money, but to direct it with purpose.

But my journey is not your journey.

The beauty of the new financial landscape is the diversity of options.

The “best” app is the one that aligns with your specific goals, personality, and life stage.

It’s Not About Me, It’s About You

Based on my extensive research and hands-on testing, here are my tailored recommendations:

• For the Mint Loyalist Seeking a Seamless Upgrade: You loved the way Mint worked, you just wished it was more reliable and didn’t bombard you with ads. You want to track your spending and see your cash flow without a major overhaul. Your choice is clear: Quicken Simplifi. It offers a familiar feel with a superior engine under the hood at a very reasonable price.
• For the Aspiring Budgeting Master Ready to Take Control: You feel like you’re spinning your wheels financially. You might be dealing with debt, living paycheck-to-paycheck, or simply feel a nagging anxiety that your money is controlling you. You’re ready to do the work to make a fundamental change. You don’t just need an app; you need a new system. Your choice is YNAB.
• For the Investor Who Wants to Track Their Wealth: Your main financial focus is on the big picture: growing your investments, planning for retirement, and watching your net worth climb. Detailed monthly budgeting feels like small potatoes. The best tool for you is also, remarkably, free. Your choice is Empower.
• For the Couple Uniting Their Financial Lives: You and your partner are a team, and you need a financial tool built for teamwork. You want a shared command center that can handle everything from joint accounts and shared goals to individual spending, all while providing a comprehensive view of your combined net worth. The premium choice built for you is Monarch Money.
• For the Design-Focused Apple User: The experience matters. You believe that a beautiful, intuitive, and engaging interface is the key to staying consistent with your finances. You live and breathe the Apple ecosystem. Your choice is Copilot Money. It’s the most enjoyable app to use, and that pleasure can be a powerful motivator.

The shutdown of Mint felt like a disruption, but it was truly a gift.

It was a catalyst that pushed millions of us out of our comfortable but flawed financial homes and into a world of better tools and, more importantly, better philosophies.

This is your chance not just to replace an app, but to upgrade your entire approach to money.

It’s an opportunity to be more intentional, more proactive, and ultimately, more empowered to build the financial life you deserve.

Appendix: Your Smooth Migration Guide

Making the switch from Mint can be daunting, but a little preparation can ensure a smooth transition to your new financial home.

The most critical step is securing your historical data before it’s gone for good.

Before You Go: Exporting Your Mint Data

You must export your transaction history from Mint before the final shutdown date of March 23, 2024, or before you complete the one-way migration to Credit Karma.²

Once you migrate, you lose access to your Mint account.

Here is the step-by-step process:

1. Log in to your account at Mint.com on a web browser (not the mobile app).
2. In the menu on the left side of the screen, click on Transactions.
3. You can select a specific financial account or leave it on “All Accounts” to export everything at once.
4. Scroll to the very bottom of your transaction list.
5. Look for a small link that says “export [number] transactions” and click it.
6. Your data will begin downloading as a CSV (Comma-Separated Values) file, which is compatible with spreadsheet programs and most financial apps.²⁹

The Import Process: What to Expect

The ability to import your historical Mint data varies by application.

Here is a summary of what to expect from the top contenders:

• Monarch Money: Offers the most seamless import experience. It provides a dedicated, open-source Chrome browser extension specifically designed to pull in your Mint transaction history, making the process relatively easy.²⁹
• Quicken Simplifi: Has significantly improved its import process in response to the Mint shutdown. It now features a wizard that can handle importing data from multiple accounts in a single step, rather than requiring separate files for each account.¹²
• YNAB, Tiller, CountAbout: These apps all support importing Mint’s CSV file. However, the process can be more manual and may require some data cleanup in a spreadsheet program before importing to ensure categories and transactions map correctly.³⁰
• Empower: Does not currently have a feature to import historical transaction data from Mint. To use Empower, you will need to link your financial accounts directly, and the platform will typically pull in the last 90 days of transaction history from your banks.⁶²
• Copilot Money: Does not currently offer a data import feature.⁵⁶ You will be starting with a clean slate.

Final Tip

Regardless of which new application you choose, it is highly recommended that you keep a local backup of your exported Mint CSV file on your personal computer.

This file is your permanent record, a valuable financial archive that you can reference for years to come, independent of any single app or service.⁴

Works cited

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