Track Your Money (Part 4): Mint (All) Breakdown

A Word From the Editor in 2025

Hi folks! Grumpus Maximus here, your friendly author, editor and publisher of the Golden Albatross Blog. The below article compares Mint.com to Quicken in some key areas as money tracking and reporting programs. However, Mint.com is no longer operational because Intuit (the parent company) shut it down in March 2024. This news did not surprise me given the numbers of issues I identified with the program when I originally published Track Your Money parts 3 and 4 in 2017 and 2018, respectively. That said, I’m keeping this article up on my website as a historical archive since I also make some good points about Quicken’s comprehensive reports ability — despite loathing the program itself. My reasoning? Quicken is still an operational program and company, reader’s may yet find my insights valuable. In any case, if you’re reading this as of 2025 or later, then just keep Mint.com’s demise in mind. It’s hard for money tracking programs to stand the test of time.

Hidy Ho (Math) Campers!

As a result of the problems identified in my previous article with Mint.com’s annual “Net Savings Over Time” report, I decided to nerd out on money tracking again. Apologies to those of you who don’t enjoy these articles as much as some of my others. However, much like Darrow Kirkpatrick did with retirement calculators, I believe it’s important to understand the pluses and minuses associated with popular money tracking software. This is especially crucial considering the importance I place on tracking money, to begin with.

I spent several days prior to writing this article improving the fidelity of my data in my Mint.com account. I also rebuilt my entire 2017 financial year in Quicken. Doing so allowed me to total my net savings for the year in Quicken and verify if I made any mistakes with my Mint calculations.

The now infamous Net Income Over Time report display

To refresh everyone’s memory, when I initially ran Grumpus Familias’s net savings for 2017 through Mint as part of my annual end of year fiscal review, it reported we saved $70.5K. However, I didn’t trust that number due to my inability to verify whether or not Mint accounted for our annual Roth IRA transfer. The program, as far I could tell, didn’t allow for that determination. After spending a few days double checking entries, modifying several transaction labels, and re-displaying reports; Mint now shows an annual net savings of $69.5K. Obviously, I had approximately $1K of transactions mislabeled in my previous report. However, I still cannot verify exactly how Mint determines expenses and income for this report. As a result, I don’t trust this number any more than the previous one. Continue reading →

Track Your Money (Part 3): Passive Tracking

Posted on 31-December-17 by Grumpus

A Passive Tracking Experiment

I’m ready to blow up this lab whenever you are!

In case you can’t tell from my title, this article is a follow-on to my previous two “Tracking Your Money” posts. In the first article, I reviewed my historical use of various software applications to track my money over the past 20 years or so. In the second, my brother (Grumpus Brotherus the Younger) reviewed the software application called You Need A Budget (YNAB).

If you did not read the first post in this series, you probably should. I don’t just say that because my brother’s post sucked (it did), and I think mine is much better (it was), or I want the extra site traffic (I do). No, I say that because I actually made a few worthwhile points in the post … if I do say so myself. However, if you’re unwilling or unable to go to the post, let me provide you a re-cap. Continue reading →

The Reluctant Financial Voyeur

Posted on 04-September-17 by Grumpus

Foreclosure From The Great Recession

Over the past two work weeks, I helped financially counsel a fellow officer whose residual financial issues from the Great Recession stood to impact his career. There we were, almost 10 years from the start of the downturn, looking at foreclosure documents starting in 2009. He’d only settled the foreclosure within the last year, and the DoD wanted answers. In some ways, I could hardly believe it. In other ways, it was a sobering reminder about the lasting impact that event will have on American society for years, possibly generations, to come.

It also proved an interesting glimpse into another financial way a life. I found a life almost alien to mine because decades ago my fellow officer chose to build wealth through rental properties. Despite my personal negative history with a 2004 property purchase (as related previously on this blog), I hold no ill will for those who choose property investment as a method for building wealth. If it works for them, that’s great. However, my comrade-in-arms had specifically chosen a highly leveraged method for acquiring rental properties. As I questioned him on the simple details that he should’ve known from using this strategy, I quickly realized he lacked the acumen for it.

Continue reading →

FI Numbers Don’t Lie, But They May Mislead (Part 1)

Posted on 19-August-17 by Grumpus

Stop What You’re Doing …

Cuz I’m about to ruin the Grumpus sense and style that you’re used to?

In the now timeless words of Chris Farley, “Holy Schneikes!”. I saw a lot of negativity on the interwebs this week, which made me regret getting a Book of Face account. I only got an account in order to run a Financial Independence (FI) blog. Prior to that I was as anti-FB as they come, and had never had an account. In fact, I still do not have personal account, just this semi-awesome public persona with his two avid followers (thanks kids!).

I used to simply listen to podcasts about the cognitive dissonance people engaged in on the internet, now I get to see it first hand. I used to read well thought out news articles that would lay out facts, points, and counter-points forcing me to think about all sides of an issue. Now I get sucked into the visceral, opinion laden, and nonfactual diarrhea that spews out from peoples’ minds, through their thumbs, and into their comments box. Is it me, or do people just like to shout “fake news”, strap into their echo chambers, and argue past each other with no intent, or hope, in reaching common ground. It’s enough to make a grumpy guy like me point out that people suck … I mean REALLY suck.

What does any of that have to do with personal finances, FI, and retirement planning? I don’t know, but I felt it needed to be said. If that loses me an occasional reader, so be it. As Bob Dole once said, “…the exits, which are clearly marked, are for you…“. Continue reading →