Why Most Mint Alternatives Are Worse Than Mint Was

Hot take maybe but I think most of what replaced Mint is objectively worse for the average person who used it.

Mint was not technically impressive. My Chase sync broke probably every 2-3 months and I'd spend 20 minutes reconnecting it. It once categorized a grocery store visit as "entertainment" for like 6 months and I never bothered fixing it. The app was slow. Intuit clearly didn't invest in it.

But the thing it did - connect your stuff, show you a dashboard, charge you nothing - that's still not fully replaced.

YNAB is $15/month and requires you to learn a whole methodology. It's a genuinely better product imo for people who want to actually budget seriously. I am not one of those people. I just wanted to look at my spending once a month and feel bad about how much I spent on food delivery. YNAB is overkill for that.

Monarch is nicer looking and slightly cheaper. Also requires a subscription. I tried it for the trial period and kept thinking "this is good but do I need to pay monthly for this."

The free options are mostly broken or limited in annoying ways or they're collecting data to sell you financial products which is fine I guess but it's why they're free.

tbh DrakeAI is what I use now but it's a completely different thing - no bank sync, manual entry. It doesn't replace what I liked about Mint. It replaces the habit Mint gave me, which is a different thing. If you want automatic sync and free and comprehensive that combination just doesn't seem to exist anymore. I miss it.