And it can be argued that YNAB shines here because helping you budget is its stated mission and gets greater emphasis. While both services can be very helpful in the creation of budgets, they have slightly different approaches. This category is where Mint and YNAB begin to differentiate themselves.
I failed to do this when I tried to link my checking and savings account, so they did not appear at first. Note: When importing multiple accounts from the same financial institution, you’ll have to actively click on each listed account to have it show up on your dashboard. Syncing up takes about a minute or two per account. Like Mint, YNAB offers a searchable list of financial institutions. YNAB gives you the option of linking outside accounts or merely listing them and entering your balances. You can also log in using your Google credentials.
(You’ll be prompted to sign up for their paid subscription, but there’s no need to do that right away.)
That allows you to start a free trial of the service. To become a “YNABer,” you start by providing an email address. The setup process for YNAB is not very different from Mint. Note: If you already have a login from using TurboTax or Quicken, you can use that to get started with Mint. Once you sync accounts, you’ll see them listed along with the balances on the left side of your screen. Mint makes things a little easier by providing a searchable list of financial institutions.
(I would set aside a full hour for this if you want to include all of your financial accounts.) This step is probably the most arduous and time-consuming process of getting started with Mint. It involves typing in the login information and passwords for these accounts and waiting a minute or two for them to sync up. For example, include your bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts and loans. Next, you will need to go through the process of linking outside accounts.
Hop onto and come armed with your email address, a password and a phone number.
It’s fairly easy to set up an account with Mint. Here’s how you can get started with each tool. But at its core, it is a useful account aggregator offering you the ability to see all of your financial accounts in one view. YNAB uses these rules in assisting users with creating and following budgets, and to help you begin saving money beyond what you earn.
Using an app for Android or Apple, or the website, Mint is capable of importing the login information for everything from bank accounts, investment accounts, loans and credit cards. It is best known as an account aggregator since it will allow you to view all of your financial accounts at once on a single dashboard.
This is not to say that one is necessarily better than the other, just trying to point out some major differences.Mint was created in 2006 and later acquired by Intuit, the provider of financial software including TurboTax and Quicken. It's extremely convenient and makes me feel secure in that I'm always looking at the entirety of my financial landscape. I have my car loan, mortgage account, checking, savings, paypal, credit cards, amazon store card, retirement accounts, and student loans all linked into Mint - so everything I do is automatically imported into the Mint ecosystem. YNAB doesn't even try to compete, claiming it's for philosophical reasons but really, they just don't have the clout and resources that Intuit has. However, Mint has unbeatable integration with many different financial institutions. The person who introduced me to Mint has switched to YNAB, saying, "Mint looks backwards, YNAB looks to the future." There may be some truth to this, as Mint and I are inseparable and I tend to overspend and try to reconcile it with my "budgets" after the fact.