The king of personal finance apps?
A great tool to manage your financial accounts, spending, cash flow & more
Howdy folks! 👋
While it’s easy to stick your head in the sand and ignore your personal finances, I wouldn’t recommend it.
I also recommend against micro-managing your money and becoming so money vigilant that you focus on your money matters at the expense of enjoying your life.
In all things, balance is the key.
Regardless of your approach to keeping an eye on your money - whether it’s your trusty spreadsheet or an app or a legal pad - today I’d like to introduce another option.
I’ve written about some of these tools in the past:
10 reasons to use mint.com (2008)
Personally, I used Mint.com for many years.
Not long ago, it was rebranded to Credit Karma.
Tools like Mint/Credit Karma, Personal Capital/Empower, and others are free to use, but they’re not free to operate.
So they use a combination of advertisements or pitches for paid services to fund their platforms and offer them to you for free.
Alternatively, there are paid personal finance tools like Tiller and YNAB.
I’ve tried them all.
I know many of you have too.
I believe the best tool for the job is the one you’ll actually use.
With all this in mind, I’d like to introduce you to Monarch Money.
Monarch Money is a paid service, so you don’t have to wade through credit card offers and other ads. It’s been around since 2018.
I’ve been using it for a few months, and it’s become my personal finance app of choice.
A few of my clients are using it too.
And while it’s a paid tool among several free options, I like that it’s not bombarding me with credit card offers.
Plus it’s really well designed and intuitive.
Here’s a screenshot of their main dashboard which you can customize to your preferences (click any of the images below to see a larger version):
Here’s their accounts and net worth tracking page:
Here’s their transactions tracking page:
And here’s my favorite page in their app for tracking cash flow:
Note: All the screenshots above are from a demo account and don’t reflect anyone’s actual finances. Also, I have “dark mode” enabled in the demo account which you can see in the screenshots above, but their default interface looks like this. If you prefer something a little lighter:
I wrote this back in October:
Fixed & Flexible
Good morning, One of my clients in the Pacific Northwest recently shared that they’re enjoying a new hobby… It’s called pétanque. How about you? What’s something new or interesting you’ve been trying out lately?
Included in the article above is a link to a March, 2023, blog post from Monarch Money about how to budget as a couple.
Of course, their suggestions also work if you’re budgeting on your own.
Here’s their budgeting blog post again if you’re interested:
Most people don’t like budgets or budgeting.
I don’t either.
So I don’t have a budget.
Instead, I think for many people a tool like Monarch Money is most helpful in getting a feel for what’s coming in (income) and what’s going out (spending).
And rather than creating a “budget” and beating yourself up if you don’t stay perfectly on track day-to-day or month-to-month, I prefer to think of it as a deliberate spending plan.
As I mentioned above, I believe a higher-level look at your overall cash flow can be more helpful and lead to fewer bouts of self-recrimination.
See this article/podcast episode (also linked above) for more on cash flow:
Your Most Important Money Number - Episode 6
Among all the financial data and information that is necessary to build and maintain your financial and retirement planning, there's one number that, in my opinion, is important above all others. It's your "MDI" or monthly discretionary income. This is the average number of dollars you have each month after you've paid all your normal bills and supported …
So you might consider checking out Monarch Money or another one of these tools to help you be a little more deliberate with your money decisions.
If you’re a client…
If you’re a current client and would like to check out Monarch Money, please let me know.
I will set you up with Monarch Money at no cost.
Tell me… how do you keep track of your money currently?
I’m curious, so let me know.
Hit reply or leave a comment.
Links & Things
Many people - both consumers and financial professionals - are focused on “more.”
More money.
More stuff.
More productivity.
More, more, more…
Instead, I’d encourage you to think about “enough”…
Check out this article from Steve Sanduski. Written primarily for an audience of financial advisors, I think you’ll find it worthwhile:
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Hit reply or leave a comment and share your thoughts…
Until next Wednesday,
Russ
I have not taken the leap into Monarch Money, but I agree it appears to be the best. My problem with any of these providers are they seem to not show the picture for the way each client thinks about it and how a Financial Planner needs to make considerations. Example: Income - is this salary or take home pay? Social Security - Is that Gross or Net? I am finding that software is as equally as fragmented as my clients in terms of their money language, so it's not nearly as scalable given the variety of vernaculars. / JC