I Tried 5 Mint Alternatives for 30 Days - Here's What I Kept

Spent a few weeks bouncing between apps after Mint shut down. Kept going back to my spreadsheet in between, which tells you something.

YNAB was the first one I tried because it comes up in every recommendation thread. Genuinely interesting system - zero-based budgeting where every dollar gets a job. I liked the concept. I did not like learning the concept while also trying to track my actual expenses at the same time. Cancelled somewhere in week two. Might be better if I came back with more patience.

Monarch I liked more. Bank sync worked, the interface is clean, it feels modern. Costs $10 something a month. I almost stayed. Then I added up all my subscriptions and decided I didn't want another one. Not Monarch's fault, just bad timing.

PocketGuard has a free version. The free version is kind of a demo that nags you to upgrade. I used it for like 3 days.

Copilot kept coming up but it's iOS only and I'm on Android so.

DrakeAI is where I ended up and it's honestly a weird choice because it doesn't do bank sync at all - you just type what you spent. My first reaction was that this was 10 years backward. Stuck with it anyway because I kept forgetting to open the other apps and somehow kept remembering to log things in this one. I think because opening an app that just shows a text box feels less like a commitment than opening a full dashboard.

Still using it a few months later. Still occasionally use my spreadsheet for certain things. Wouldn't say it completely replaced Mint, just... replaced the habit Mint gave me.