Even if you’ve never used Mint, the oldest and most popular personal budgeting tool that has ever existed, chances are you’ve heard of it.
But have you heard that it’s going away?
Intuit, the company that owns Mint, recently announced that, come January 2024, Mint is being axed because it’s not making them enough cash. It hopes that its 4M+ users will switch over to Credit Karma, another one of its products, which it says will offer “some of the most popular Mint-like features.”
Except for… uh… one pretty big one.
According to a NYT piece announcing the news, Credit Karma “does not offer a budgeting tool that allows users to set a monthly budget and budgets by category, a favorite feature of Mint users.”
I’ll be honest with you – I never liked Mint. The one or two times I tried to use it, I found it really overwhelming and confusing. I also found the emails intrusive and the experience to be decidedly user-unfriendly.
Not that I was taking budgeting remotely seriously back then. But still.
And I’m not 100% clear on what Credit Karma does, either. Its wide range of menu dropdown items include “credit cards from our partners” to shop, personal loan options, credit reports, auto loans, mortgage calculators. It feels similarly overwhelming and also… as mentioned a few sentences ago, lacking a budgeting tool (??)
I’ve paid down nearly $14,000 of credit card debt so far, thanks in large part to figuring out how to budget. And, if you’ve ever spoken to me or read this newsletter or watched my TikToks or have ever been within earshot of me, you know that I learned how to enjoy budgeting because of Tiller.
I asked Rachel, who introduced me to Tiller at the beginning of my budgeting journey, how she started using it and what she likes about it. Here’s what she said:
“I had used Mint before, and I remember every time I tried to get on it, I would be really frustrated because… there were a ton of ads on it.
So I tried a few different apps, and Tiller was the only one that was very clean, customizable and used tools I was already using, like Google Sheets… it was a solid, offline tool that just worked. You can see all the information laid out.”
In light of this weird Mint news, you may be looking to jump ship and try out a new tool. I also have been asked many times to explain how Tiller works and how I use it. So, now seems like the perfect time to do just that.
Using step by step instructions, accompanying photos and even tips and tricks from Heather Phillips, Customer Success Lead & Product Owner at Tiller, I’ll answer this week’s JAFAQ:
How exactly do I use Tiller to budget?
This is not a sponsored post* – however! – I do have an affiliate link with Tiller, in which I receive a cut for any subscriptions made using this link. It’s a considerable percentage of the total $79/yearly cost, a testament to its ethical company policies that make me want to support them even more! (*if you need proof, check out Tiller’s own response to the Mint news, which recommends a bunch of apps besides Tiller to former Mint users to try out).
And the reason I was even offered a link was because I was already spreading the Tiller gospel on social media for free, already believed in the product and agreed with its way of doing business – including charging a yearly fee.
Other apps (Mint included) are free of charge because, unlike many of our other “free” apps like Instagram & TikTok, they don’t make money by selling your data to third parties. I especially appreciate this distinction as it applies to such a sensitive topic like my money.
More importantly, it means you don’t see a single ad while using Tiller. No one is attempting to sell you anything or throw your budgeting goals off track – quite the contrary.
That same ethos applies to Tiller’s customer service.
“I discovered that anytime I had a question, the answer was always either already probably published on one of their FAQ's section, or, they also were extremely responsive as a customer service team,” Rachel said. “It’s a handful of people responding to you who actually work at the company, they’re very devoted to the product.”
enjoy this rough cut of us waxing poetic on Tiller while you read :)
There is also a Tiller blog, that answers frequently asked questions and keeps users updated on relevant news (like this Mint news and transparency about how it was impacted by the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in March 2023, to name a few).
There is a true sense of care offered by this small but mighty business, and you can feel it.
It shakes out to be around $6.50 per month, and I am not being hyperbolic when I say I could not have paid off any of this debt or understood anything about my money situation without it.
This FAQ post will be unlike my other posts, because it will be behind a paywall. I’ve decided to do it this way because this question requires a more complicated and time-consuming response, and the comments will be open for more specific questions, too.
Having said all that, if you are not a paid subscriber because of financial constraints and you have a specific Tiller-related question, you can email me at realgirlproject@gmail.com and I will do my best to answer.
OK, let’s get into it.
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