Has anyone used the BUDGET feature succesfully

[tkrhodes]

I've been going over the budget feature again and again trying this and trying that and I can't make heads or tails of it. I stopped using my old budget software because I thought this would make it much much easier since I had all my transactions imported right there allowing me to access all my financial information. I've searched through the forums and haven't found anyone with any tips on how to make it work.

I would really like to hear from a MINT employee on this issue because if this is something that isn't going to work for awhile then I'll need to get back to my old budget software and do some serious catching up.

Obviously the best solution would be the budget portion of MINT working perfectly, but I would also like to see instructions and maybe some helpful tips that are easily accessible.

[tkrhodes]

I would really like to hear from an ADMIN on this issue. Please let me if this isn't the right forum for this topic and I will post it somewhere else.

Travis

[da bum]

Posting here might not be the best idea. Have you tried Mint's contact form?

http://www.mint.com/contact.html#contact-form

[smilkman]

You've hit the nail on the head. If the budgeting portion doesn't work, I've got to go back to other financial software. The designers should look at You Need A Budget... Quicken is pretty bad on this score. The old Managing Your Money used to make it really easy. Here is your budget, here is what you have spent so far this month. Here's what's left. Why is this so hard?

[dracoaffectus]

I'm not an admin, but I am a user and I haven't had any problems using the Budget feature on Mint. Maybe it would be beneficial if you provide a little more details about your problem, tkrhodes. What were the steps you performed? What were you expecting to happen? What actually happened? It's really difficult for anyone (admin or not) to help you without this information.



EDIT: If you're just looking for a step-by-step guide:

1. Login to your Mint account
2. Go to the Overview page
3. Click "Add Budget"
4. Under "Choose a Category", Select the main category you would like to add a budget for in the first dropdown box.
5. Select the specific category you would like to add a budget for in the second dropdown box.
6. Under "Set a Budget Amount", enter the amount you would like to budget for this category.
7. Click "Save"
8. Repeat steps 3-7 for all budgets wanted.

There's a bug you should be aware of with Mint counting transactions twice in the Budget if you have a separate budget for the specific category and the general category. Meaning if you have a budget for "Auto (all)" and another budget for "Gas/Fuel", since all gas purchases technically belong to both categories they would be counted twice. I've suggested a way for Mint to fix this that I hope they consider implementing, but in the mean time the easy way to avoid this problem is to simply avoiding the overlap altogether.

[johnnybones]

I've been going over the budget feature again and again trying this and trying that and I can't make heads or tails of it. I stopped using my old budget software because I thought this would make it much much easier since I had all my transactions imported right there allowing me to access all my financial information. I've searched through the forums and haven't found anyone with any tips on how to make it work.

I would really like to hear from a MINT employee on this issue because if this is something that isn't going to work for awhile then I'll need to get back to my old budget software and do some serious catching up.

Obviously the best solution would be the budget portion of MINT working perfectly, but I would also like to see instructions and maybe some helpful tips that are easily accessible.

I have to agree.. This feature seems useless. How do you edit your budgets? I have an auto budget and a gas budget.. I am trying to remove gas from the auto budget... Unsuccessful.. I am trying to add a credit card payment budget.. Unsuccessful.. Yodlee blows Mint away with editing features... I am glad I took a Mint survey a few months back, or I would never have found out about Yodlee.. Mint has a long way to go...

[sbw99]

Let's face it. Car and insurance payments are relatively fixed for most people. The biggest risk of blowing the car budget is at the gas pump or repair shop. Food, entertainment and shopping are also variable expenditures that can easily exceed budget. Fortunately, Mint's automatic budgets work well for these categories.

If you want more control over budgets, the custom tools leave much to be desired. They could be easier to use, easier to understand and more valuable to users of traditional money management software (or crazy excel spreadsheets like mine). For now, keep your custom budgets simple, limited to areas of greatest concern, and eliminate other budgets that are similar.

Yodlee's form to set budgets makes it easy to set multiple budgets at the same time, requiring fewer clicks with less chance of confusing the intent of the budget categories. However, it is not visually compelling and may be overwhelming to novice users. I urge Mint to address this issue based on clear user goals, uses cases and task flow analysis... but I also caution that Yodlee's form approach may not be the right answer for Mint.

[IronBlaze]

I'm not an admin, but I am a user and I haven't had any problems using the Budget feature on Mint. Maybe it would be beneficial if you provide a little more details about your problem, tkrhodes. What were the steps you performed? What were you expecting to happen?

I've run into problems with adding a budget in that when I add them they show up fine as the percentage used. Later, after going to a different page (even within the site)when I go back to the budget it is still listed with the amount I budgeted to it, but it says I haven't spent any money towards the particular item. Any help with this?

[dracoaffectus]

I've run into problems with adding a budget in that when I add them they show up fine as the percentage used. Later, after going to a different page (even within the site)when I go back to the budget it is still listed with the amount I budgeted to it, but it says I haven't spent any money towards the particular item. Any help with this?


I can't really help with that, I wasn't able to re-create the problem you described with my own account. But I did notice a funny behavior with my budget, if I go back and forth between the overview page and other Mint pages, it sometimes mixes up my budget list, all items in my budget still show their correct value, they just sometimes appear in a different order. No big deal, just a little weird.

[soleilangela]

This is a lovely site. I just love it but if I can't edit anything, add categories, add my revenues like cash it does not meet my needs.

I though it would be obvious that budgeting would include these features.

I want to see my revenue - my expenses etc ... Please :)

[michael@czeiszperger.org]

1. Login to your Mint account
2. Go to the Overview page
3. Click "Add Budget"
4. Under "Choose a Category", Select the main category you would like to add a budget for in the first dropdown box.
5. Select the specific category you would like to add a budget for in the second dropdown box.
6. Under "Set a Budget Amount", enter the amount you would like to budget for this category.
7. Click "Save"
8. Repeat steps 3-7 for all budgets wanted.


Sorry but I still don't get it. I tried following the above instructions, and it only shows me the current month; there's no way of viewing past months as they're grayed out.

I don't understand why Mint is so good at some areas, like transaction categorization, but can't even do a simple budget.

[pcorad]

When I click on "Add Budget" nothing happens. Pop Up blocker is off. I see "mouseover" in the lower left hand corner of my browser that says "javascript:void(null);"

How do I fix this error?

[Stephen]

Hi pcorad,

What browser are you using?

[Paul St. Paul]

Pcorad - I get that too. I just hit the browser 'refresh' button and when it all comes back, the budget button works.

[janie_super@yahoo.com]

i use the budget and it generally works just fine for me. i depend on it.

some people have issues with not being able to add more items, possibly using firefox or mac

one quirk about the budget, if im assigning transactions to categories, sometimes the budget undoes what it had filled into the bar. next login and it fixes

the reordering is because the budget is sorted by values.

i try to stick to major categories for my budget so that everything in that category falls into the budget. if i do a minor category, it will only see that one.

new transactions might not be categorized properly and then not appear in the budget, so keep yours updated. this is tons better than quicken online though.

ive already suggested a fix for what annoys me, and that is, i cannot edit past budgets. so once the 1st comes around, its too late to resolve yesterdays stuff.

[mimi]

I really like Mint, but I have to agree on the problems with the budgeting tool. All of my budgets are working great except for the credit card budgets. I want to be able to see how much each month I've spend on credit card payments as a separate in the budget but I cannot get it work. Anyone have any success with doing that? Thanks!

[exquicken]

I really like Mint, but I have to agree on the problems with the budgeting tool. All of my budgets are working great except for the credit card budgets. I want to be able to see how much each month I've spend on credit card payments as a separate in the budget but I cannot get it work. Anyone have any success with doing that? Thanks!

There are two kinds of credit card payments. For things that you are buying right now, your credit card payment should not show up in your budget because the payment is already showing up when you bought the item. They record it as a transfer and transfers rightly do not show up in the budget.

For things that you bought before you used mint (i.e. paying of an existing balance) or for credit cards that mint doesnt support, when you make payments you should just categorize those as something besides transfers.

[janie_super@yahoo.com]

I really like Mint, but I have to agree on the problems with the budgeting tool. All of my budgets are working great except for the credit card budgets. I want to be able to see how much each month I've spend on credit card payments as a separate in the budget but I cannot get it work. Anyone have any success with doing that? Thanks!

i categorize my credit card payments (transactions from checking) under the major category "financial advisement" and under the CUSTOM minor category "credit card payments" then i add this category to my budget and it shows in my pie chart as "financial"

this seems weird and this may not be the best way for you, i started that before Mint had a credit card payment category, i used to call it the minor category "financial advisement" since that was the only category i wasnt using at the time.

if you use the transfer major category and credit card payment minor category to track your payments (from checking) i dont think it will show up in your trends pie chart and thats another reason i do it the way i do.

[mburdsall]

The biggest problem I see with the budgets is that Mint.com does not allow you to budget income items. This is nice if your income is variable, or like me most of my income comes from investments and dividends.

It would also be nice to see budget trends over the last year or comparisons between different periods like last month, quarter or year or previous years month or quarter.