Mint Canada Budget App Review

As fresh as its name suggests, ‘Mint’ is one of the most popular apps that help you keep track of your money, finances, and budgeting. But what makes Mint extra special from other similar budgeting apps out there? First, let’s take a closer look at the ways and means of navigating it, how you can utilize its features to their fullest potentials, and what you can and cannot get from using it. After all of this discussion, eventually, we’ll come up with a decision if it’s helpful or not in your money matters. So, let’s get started!

Mint Budgeting App’s Origins

One factor contributing to Mint’s success and popularity is the people behind this budgeting app – Intuit. A well-established and respected financial company software, Intuit is proud to be one of the ‘Top 100 U.S. Companies Supporting Healthy Communities and Families’ conducted by JUST Capital last year, 2020. Having best-in-class benefits, Intuit placed in the #14 spot over a hundred U.S. companies. Just by this credential, we can easily see their dedication to Mint’s conceptualization and eventual birth.

Considered the standard in budgeting apps, Mint is a very comprehensive personal finance software and money manager that is free. With Intuit’s reputable name behind it, Mint is online software that budgets and connects your financial accounts. It does everything for you automatically – imports your transactions and categorizes them, then tracks each of these transactions and compares and contrasts them based on your budget, customized by none other than YOU. Mint also consolidates your accounts – bank, credit cards, loans, investments – providing you with a bigger and better picture of how your money got where it eventually went. In addition, you get accurate and updated financial status every time you log in, presented cleanly and graphically, which appeals to your understanding easily.

Mint App Review

Now that we’re already quite oriented with Mint’s background let’s go ahead and talk about its user interface, determine if it’s user-friendly or not, and what we can eventually get out of using this popular budgeting app.

Account Setup

Setting up your Mint account is just like setting up an account your already like signing up to a social networking, financial-related, or binge-watching site, among others. The signing up and logging in was created seamlessly, perfectly streamlining the app for anyone who wants an account.

After creating a Mint account (an Intuit account that you can use on Quickbooks and TurboTax, two of Intuit’s other projects, too), each of your financial accounts is connected after providing your country and zip code. You will also be answering security questions for each of your financial accounts. From then on, all the transactions and payments from your connected financial accounts will be tracked by Mint, being able to backtrack up until three (3) months, consolidated in one place, the “Transactions Tab,” which will be discussed in the next bullet. 

Features

Like any other app you’ve used before, Mint also has tabs and features for easy budgeting. The tabs are as follows:

  • Transactions – this is where every one of your transactions from all connected financial accounts will be listed and consolidated, a very efficient way to look at your earnings and spending in just one place. You can search for specific transactions or use filters either by type of transaction, account, or even a customizable tag you have created. Cash dealings can also be added manually in this tab. It is highly recommended to regularly check this tab, ensuring that your transactions are recorded correctly and if tags automatically assigned are labelled correctly. You can edit tags, change their dates and descriptions by clicking the transaction you want. Another thing to take note of here is that ‘credit card payments’ are shown twice – as a transfer and as a received payment’ – so make sure to double-check these whenever you encounter them.
  • Budgets – after consolidating your transactions, you can next set up your budget by creating categories that may start with your monthly income. Then, eventually summing up necessities like bills and utilities, monthly prescription bills, gas, groceries, and insurance – some “essential categories” that you can work your budget around. Try to do this monthly, coming back and checking your budget and seeing the necessary adjustments needed. Then, with the help of the proper tags on your transactions, Mint will automatically update your budget using all the related transactions. So, make sure tags are correctly labelled, or else your budget would be wrong overall. Finally, rethink and reorganize your budget around the presented information in this tab, giving you a clearer perspective of your money’s worth.
  • Goals – once all your transactions are tagged correctly and your budget allocated well, this tab gives you the freedom to set different saving goals; you can choose from the default ones Mint provided or freely create your own. Then through these options, Mint will provide a mini questionnaire to you, and with that, will help you decide how much money will be put away monthly towards this goal. Furthermore, each goal has a built-in calculator that suggests how much you should try allocating. In addition, these goals will also appear in the “Budget” tab, reminding you to save money towards it.
  • Trends – through numerous graphs and pie charts, this tab will show your spending that would allow you to view everything easily. Mint would provide a comprehensive dropdown list for your convenience, depending on a category you want to see in terms of your money like ‘spending,’ ‘income,’ ‘net income,’ ‘assets,’ and ‘debts.’ Then, sub-categorized either ‘overtime,’ ‘by category,’ ‘by merchant,’ ‘by account,’ ‘by type,’ or ‘by tag.’
  • Ways to Save – with a partnership with Ratehub, this tab helps you compare and contrast new credit cards categorized either as rewards, low interest, balance transfer, or secured.

Mint Canada Q&A

After you have been toured inside Mint, you probably still have questions you want answers to. No worries. Here are some FAQs you should need to know:

Does Mint Work in Canada?

A: Yes, Mint Budgeting App works with most of the leading financial institutions in Canada. You can connect any Canadian bank account and automatically track your transactions.

Is Mint safe to use?

A:    Being the standard amongst budgeting apps and one of the most popular, Mint is very safe and probably has incredible security features, given that they are from Intuit.     However, this doesn’t make them impenetrable. Mint is like how your online banking sites work in terms of security, but after all, anything can happen. Worst case scenario – you may be denied fraud protection by your bank if things don’t go well since Mint is considered a third-party service provider. So, it is still best to be very vigilant all the time. 

How does Mint compare to other budgeting apps?

A:    As good as its automation capabilities that contribute to Mint’s image as the best budget app compared to others, it still has imperfections: it may not link up with smaller banks and credit unions; customer service may not be what you expect it to be since it’s a free app; and not the budgeting app for people who gets uncomfortable in allowing others access to their essential banking information.

Do banks approve of the use of budgeting apps like Mint?

A: Let’s face it – when these budgeting apps and related ones first shed light on their potential users, one of the first sectors to show opposition and disapproval are the banks themselves. The idea of providing access to vital banking information of their customers by a third party is something that they disapprove of and still don’t until today.     Most banks and financial institutions stay firm in this stance to avoid eventual liability if, in any case, any breach will be made in a customer’s data.

Can I check my credit score using Mint?

A:    Yes, because Mint provides its users with their up-to-date credit score whenever they log in. Mint also splits this credit score report into functional categories like on-time payments, credit usage, and average credit age.

Do I need to pay any fees before I can use Mint?

A:    Good news here is that Mint is free. Just go to your phone’s download store,         search for the app, download, and you’re good to go. Then, go back to the previous steps given earlier for you to sign up, create, and set up your account.

Mint: Friend or Foe?

We can somehow decide if Mint will be something beneficial for us or just something that would worsen our finances. So, let’s look at a comprehensive discussion of the pros and cons of Mint as a potential budgeting app you would use.

Mint is your money’s friend because:

– It’s free.
–    It has a user-friendly interface that has easy sign-in, account creation, and setup.
–    It consolidates all your transactions in the Transactions tab that can also be downloaded as a CSV file.
–    It gives the convenience of automatic budget tracking.
–    It sends weekly summaries via email.
–    Aside from the mobile app, Mint also has a website where you also do budgeting that can be convenient anywhere there is an internet connection.

Mint is your money’s foe because:

–    It may invalidate the fraud protection your bank offers if unfortunate situations occur, mainly because you are connecting to a third-party service provider.
–    It might be very overwhelming to start new budgets you are not familiar with yet.
–    Mint only helps you budget your money, not pay your bills.
–    It doesn’t allow you to delete transactions if they are wrong.
–    It may require you to log back in when you get disconnected several times in just a short period.
–    Its automatic assignment of categories is not reliable all the time, so you might need regular checking of your account to make sure all is in order.

‘Minty’ Decision: Is it a YES or a NO?

If you want a budgeting app that is free of charge, automatic, and all-in-one, then Mint is the budget tracker for you.

Even with its remarkable automation abilities that may not require your time, it can be a downfall anyone of us may fall deeper into. Therefore, it is still best to check everything even if you have an automated budget than not funding.

Paying attention to the tags you have assigned your transactions and making sure all your financial accounts are still connected would be best practices to keep you on track of your finances. This step is essential even if you are already using an automated budget tracker.

And suppose you are concerned with your security in providing bank information. In that case, nothing will happen if you don’t connect your accounts, so you might reconsider other options other than using Mint.

Inuit’s Mint: The Final Verdict

In the end, we can say that Mint is a ‘fresh’ one – a budgeting app worth using, especially if you’re the “hands-off” type that enjoys dealing with your finances this way. Even if we have covered quite an intensive array of topics about Mint, there is still much more to explore on the features and options Mint has to offer. But one thing can be sure: Mint is something you would want to consider being part of your finances and budget. It saves you the hassle of going to multiple sites to get a quick overview of your finances. Just visit Mint.com or tap your Mint app, and viola – an appealing, accurate estimation of your finances is presented to you.

Overall, Mint is a great budgeting app that is a fantastic resource for your finances, so I highly recommend you take advantage of this budget tracker now. The fear you might have regarding privacy and securing all your vital banking information might be something you can surpass after you experience what Mint can do for you and your finances – free, automatic, and all-in-one. Don’t get disappointed if, after a few tries, you don’t get things your way. However, you might be surprised later on that Mint works and has helped you manage your money.

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This article will take a look at budgeting in YNAB Mint and what you need from it, as well as some of its features. Budget apps offer various services and features to help you save money while tracking your finances, including your income and spending. If you want to reduce your spending in one or more categories, these apps also offer free budgeted services.

A good budgeting app can make it easy to check your finances quickly whenever you need it on your phone or computer. Budgeting apps can also synchronize your financial accounts to give you an overview of your situation when changes are made.

Many personal finance software and budgeting apps allow you to link your bank accounts so the app can track where your money is going. If you want a budgeting app that isn’t connected to your financial accounts, you might want to take a look.

The app itself asks you to enter your bank details so that the program can track your spending and total balance to create a budget plan. The app itself asks you to plug it in to track your spending and overall balance while you create a budget plan. The app itself asks for your account number, credit card number and other financial information.

Mint Budgeting App comes with a daily budget planner that suggests budget goals based on your spending, as well as a monthly budget plan.

The budgeting functions are much easier to use in Mint than in other budgeted programs like YNAB or Truebill. The app is excellent because no budget category is entirely spent in a month with a zero balance, unlike different categories that accumulate savings over time. It explains your growing budget balance and that you are only budgeting for the money you have, so it is excellent to try to create and stick to your budget, even if it might sometimes help you save money. Budgeting apps like Mint and True Billing are supposed to help us keep to our budgets as much as possible, which may help us save some money, but they’re not as good as the other budgets I # ve tried because there was no monthly budget plan. Y NAB does not allow you to set a budget for future incoming dollars, nor does it consider growing envelopes or balances in the budget.

Read on to find out if this budgeting app is suitable for your money and if it’s worth your time and money!

Mint has been tapped as the best budgeting app for 2021, partly because of its mass appeal. The tool covers all the basics of your budget, so you can ultimately decide whether it’s right for you and your personal finances. Good budgeting apps vary according to the price you want and the type of app you’re looking for.

Mint has a free app to check your budget before you go and decide whether to make a purchase. If you’re interested in a budgeting app that doesn’t require you to pay like the one you’re currently using, Mint is the best free option for you. You can also check your credit card at any time, even if you have paid for it in the past.

We’ll show you the best free and paid Mint app to help you budget and save, but before we compare it to other budgeting apps on the market, we need to use it ourselves. Budget, commonly known as YNAB, takes a unique approach: all you need is an app based on the budget that asks you to assign a dollar account to each job.

The app is one of the few personal finance apps that can import data from Quicken and Mint, making the transition to the app much less painful if you’re a data junkie. As a personal finance app, Mint does not offer or require your own current account or service.

While Mint offers basic budgeting features, it also provides individual alerts for when you’re out of budget. There are also paid features such as creating unlimited budgets and viewing your credit rating factors, making Mint a more affordable option for the budget. If you prefer to track more budget categories, Mint is an excellent choice for you, but it is not the perfect service if you are looking for a program to budget with. This is an excellent option for those looking for more advanced budget planning and planning features in a personal finance app like Quicken or Minn.

There’s no doubt there are so many great budget options that can help you build a solid budget. A good, budgeted app can help me manage my money and, dare I say it, even make fun of myself. If you’re looking for a good budgeting app, you don’t need a budget.

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