I need some motivation to keep going...

TerryR

6 hours in, after getting free account and uploading all my mint data:

Banks and CCs connected easily.

It took me about 17 tries to sort of get a pair of monthly payments right. Video of that would have been sad comical.

I sort of understand how to do it, so set up all the bills I could find with their frequency (weekly, monthly, 6 months, yearly). Seemed great to have non-monthly budgets.

But it won't connect to verizon or power company to get bills… so stopped trying there.

And then I set up as many monthly spending budgets as I could think of. Simplifi estimates way off, eg $8/mo for gas…

I started trying to fix transactions, it is a huge mess. For some reason Simplifi is randomly renaming things? Like my property taxes to a health company? So I paused doing that.

I deleted all the mint transactions and accounts cuz they were all duplicates. I guess I still get the 12mos free?

Then I came down to WatchList. Which I guess is another kind of budget apart from the income/bill/subscription/cc transfer/goal hodgepodge? I set one up for stuff we shouldn't be buying.

And now I'm stuck on what screen I want to be watching with my wife. I guess its the Spending Plan Planned Spending screen? If so I guess I need to delete the watchlist.

But this is such a headache compared to mint… ugh. I signed up for one of the coaching sessions.

So what's the consensus? Is it not that bad once you get your head wrapped around it? Do your spouses get it? How did you convince yourself to keep putting time into Simplifi?

ajbopp

I can't address your import issues - several others can. I've never attempted an import.

The purpose of Watchlists is to keep an eye on things that are of particular interest to you. For instance, I have a Watchlist for anything I've tagged with "Discretionary" and set a target amount on it. Now I can see at a glance how my discretionary spending is going for the month, and if I'm approaching or exceeding my target I can get a notification about it.

I use Planned Spending for items that I know I'm going to spend for, but not necessarily how much or to whom. For instance, I have an Entertainment planned spending item where things like video game purchases or movie tickets go. However, I also have a regular monthly payment to Audible that is consistent, so I put that under Subscriptions. That Entertainment expense shows up in Bills and Subscriptions, where I expect it to, but not in Planned Spending.

It's hard having a workflow ingrained, and then trying to change the workflow for some new situation. But I find the learning curve, while steep, was not very high, and I quickly got my brain around how things work, and I much prefer it to anything I've tried before.

RobWilk

I will say that, I agree, there are issues with renaming downloaded transactions. I personally usually manually enter transactions before they download (I prefer not too be lazy about it).

And, I agree, every time I tried to connect billers, it has failed for me (I haven't tried in a few months). I don't even know that i'd like to use this feature as I pay my charges off as soon as i make them (or as soon as i get a bill).

However, for me the service is best at the Cash Flow chart, which gives me an idea how much is left (after bills) just before next income (do i need to spend less or take from savings). For example, today or tomorrow I have a ~$1000 vacation expense, looking now I see I have $917 left in checking after bills before next payday, so I'd have to take at least a couple hundred from savings to cover bills after this purchase.

UrsulaA

Hi @TerryR - Welcome to the Community.

Others have answered your other questions. Below is my opinion on the ones below as a former Mint user who migrated to Simplifi in early December. I almost gave up on Simplifi as I attempted the Mint import when the category import was not set up. Then, I tried again and I am glad I did.

I started trying to fix transactions, it is a huge mess. For some reason Simplifi is randomly renaming things? Like my property taxes to a health company? So I paused doing that.

I deleted all the mint transactions and accounts cuz they were all duplicates. I guess I still get the 12mos free?

With the imports, some users had success in making the original statement and the description the same. Simplifi seems to prioritize original statement when importing from Mint. I also found that creating the categories I needed in Simplifi under Settings helped the import be smoother. Finally, use the rules before importing if you know how a payee should be categorized. Example Shell payee categorized as Gas &Fuel.

If you imported, you will get the 12 months free. This offer works even if you import a few transactions.

With some time and patience, I got the following to match to the penny by year from Sep 2024 to Dec 2023:

Income

Expenses

Expense Groups (example entertainment)

Tags I am still using

And now I'm stuck on what screen I want to be watching with my wife. I guess its the Spending Plan Planned Spending screen? If so I guess I need to delete the watchlist.

This depends on preference, I have a watchlist with planned spending and bills together with a target set for these. I also have an Other Spending list that has all the categories not included in the planned spending and bills list. I look at those two watchlists during the month to see how am I tracking. Simpler than clicking through the spending plan for me.

Note: Watchlist totals included planned bills for the month that have not been paid yet. Disregard the projected number too, it is misleading.

But this is such a headache compared to mint… ugh. I signed up for one of the coaching sessions.

Coaching session will help.

So what's the consensus? Is it not that bad once you get your head wrapped around it? Do your spouses get it? How did you convince yourself to keep putting time into Simplifi?

I found Simplifi better than Mint in projecting cash flows for my checking account. Now I keep more money in a high yield savings account and move funds back to checking as needed.

Having the bills and subscriptions separate as opposed to buried in category lines in Mint helped me identify subscriptions I was not using. I cancelled them accordingly.

Category over budget notifications in Mint were too much for me. I ignored them. Having the planned spending categories in category groups and the bills separate helps me focus more on tracking the areas that I tend to indulge in like eating out and shopping at Amazon.

TerryR

wow thanks all for the detailed responses. Yall actually took the time to respondcto each of my questions! Ty! Wife sitting in on coaching tomorrow.