Life after Mint: how to move your budget to something better

Mint is gone, but your budget doesn't have to be. Here's how to export your data, pick the right replacement, and pick up where you left off.

What actually happened to Mint

In late 2023, Intuit announced it was shutting down Mint, and the app stopped working for everyone in 2024. Existing users were pointed toward Credit Karma, which Intuit also owns. The catch: Credit Karma is built for credit monitoring and product recommendations, not budgeting. It doesn't carry over Mint's budgets, and it isn't a place to plan where your money should go each month.

That left millions of people who relied on Mint for free, automatic tracking looking for somewhere new. The good news is that moving is mostly a one-time chore, and a well-chosen replacement can do more than Mint ever did.

Step 1: Export your Mint data to CSV

Mint let you download your transaction history as a CSV file (a plain spreadsheet). If you have any remaining access, sign in, find the transactions view, and look for an export or download option. You'll typically get a file with columns like date, description, amount, category, and account.

That CSV is the thing that matters. It's portable, it opens in any spreadsheet, and nearly every modern budgeting tool can import it. Save a copy somewhere safe before you do anything else. If you've already lost access, don't panic. You can rebuild from your bank's own transaction exports, which most banks offer as CSV downloads going back several months or more.

Step 2: Decide what's actually worth keeping

You don't need to drag every artifact of your old setup into a new one. Before importing, get clear on three things:

• Categories. Your list of spending buckets (groceries, rent, dining out). Most people trim this down when they switch. Simpler is easier to stick with.
• Budgets. The targets you set per category. This is a great moment to rethink them rather than copy old numbers you never really followed.
• History. Past transactions are useful for spotting averages, but you don't strictly need years of it. A few recent months is usually enough to set realistic budgets.

Step 3: Know what a good replacement looks like

Not every "Mint alternative" is built the same way. As you compare options, weigh these:

• Real budgeting, not just tracking. Mint mostly told you what already happened. A budgeting tool helps you decide what should happen before you spend.
• Your data is portable. You should be able to get your data out as easily as you put it in. CSV import and export are the baseline.
• Privacy you can trust. Mint was free because it was ad-supported and monetized user financial data through partner offers. That's a fair trade for some people, but it's worth knowing. A paid tool that doesn't run ads or sell data is a genuinely different model.
• Honest pricing. Most quality budgeting apps now charge a subscription. Look for clear pricing and a free trial so you can test before you commit.
• Mobile and web. You'll want to check in from your phone and do real planning on a bigger screen.

Step 4: A fair look at the main options

People leaving Mint usually land on one of a few tools. There's no single "best." It depends on how you like to think about money.

• YNAB (You Need A Budget) uses a zero-based method: you give every dollar a job until none are left unassigned. It has a devoted following and strong educational material. It asks for more hands-on involvement, which some people love and others find demanding.
• Monarch is polished and tracking-forward, with good account aggregation, net-worth views, and collaboration features for couples. It leans toward seeing the whole financial picture.
• Copilot is a well-designed, Apple-centric app known for smooth categorization and a clean experience, primarily for iPhone and Mac users.
• Taly takes a percentage-based approach. Instead of assigning every dollar by hand each month, you set a percentage for each category once. When income lands, your paycheck splits itself by those percentages. You can add dollar caps so a category never overfills, and anything over a cap automatically cascades into categories that still have room.

If hand-assigning every dollar feels like too much friction, but plain tracking feels too passive, the percentage model sits in between: you make the decisions once, then the math repeats itself. That's the gap Taly is built for. Its tagline says it plainly: your paycheck does the math.

Step 5: How to import into Taly

Taly is designed to make the move from Mint straightforward:

• CSV import is supported for files from Mint, YNAB, Monarch, and Copilot. Export from your old tool, upload the file, and map your columns.
• Manual entry works too, if you'd rather start fresh and add transactions yourself.
• Bank sync via Plaid is optional and rolling out, so you can connect accounts for automatic updates, or skip it entirely and stay manual if you prefer.

From there, you assign each category a percentage, set any caps that matter to you, and let each paycheck distribute itself. On privacy: Taly is private by design. No ads, and it never sells your data. Plans are $11/month or $96/year, with a 14-day free trial and no card required to start.

Key takeaways

• Mint has shut down, and Credit Karma isn't a budgeting tool. Export your Mint data to CSV while you still can.
• Decide what's worth keeping: categories, budgets, and a few months of history are usually enough.
• Look for a replacement that does real budgeting, respects your data portability, and is clear about privacy and pricing.
• YNAB, Monarch, and Copilot are all credible choices. Taly adds a percentage-based model where you set splits once and each paycheck distributes automatically, with caps and overflow.
• Taly imports CSV from Mint, YNAB, Monarch, and Copilot, supports manual entry, and offers optional bank sync. It's in early access now.

Published 2026-06-03 at taly.app/guides/life-after-mint.