In March, Dave Ramsey released a budgeting tool called EveryDollar (www.everydollar.com).
I wrote an EveryDollar review the day after it was released. I was in the market for an online budgeting software alternative because Mint was failing me. If you read that review, I mentioned how great I thought EveryDollar was.
The biggest negative I had against EveryDollar was the auto transaction import cost $99 a year.
So what’s happened since my initial review?
Ground control to Mint. Can you hear me Mint?
When I compared EveryDollar vs. Mint, Mint lost most of the comparisons.
As an eight year Mint user, I stood by Mint – hoping. Hoping. Hoping.
I guess six months just wasn’t enough time for Mint to fix the problem with their website. After all, it was only six months.
Here is the initial email I sent to Mint on December 2, 2014:
And here is the last follow up I received on February 17, 2015:
I’m not showing the other ten exchanges in between. But note the last email I received:
I will update you on what can be done, as soon as I get information from them.
Today is May 13, 2015. Three months have passed. No follow-up. Nothing. Radio silence. Anytime I want an update I have to email Mint. They aren’t proactive at anything.
If you run any business and you want it to succeed, try responding to your customers in a timely fashion. I’ve hired many contractors in the past simply because they responded to me.
I know what you’re thinking. You can’t expect a developer to fix a bug in that little amount of time. Note the sarcasm there.
As an IT-guy, I can guarantee I could go into Mint’s software and fix the problem within 48-hours no matter if I knew the programming language or not. Yes, I am that good of a programmer. :)
But the real reason I could do it is because I always put the customer first in any business I’ve started. It’s why I now get to goof off all day with my kids or go wakeboarding and then work teaching finance at night for fun and not get paid for it.
I’m not bitter at Mint, I just find their customer no-service has become laughable. They are most likely losing market share to newer startups because they put their customers last, not first.
Who are they losing to?
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Ground control to EveryDollar. Oh, Hello!
What’s $99 a year compared to a product that doesn’t work? Not much, I tell ya.
I’m pretty frugal when it comes to some things in my life. But I broke down and sprung for the $99 EveryDollar Plus version. I figured I’ve got a 15-day free trial, and I’m willing to shell out the $99 for year one so I can make a more informed decision.
Because I’ve been doing budgets for so long, and I use the envelope system for some things, I have developed a sixth-sense for how much money we’re spending. I can get away with not tracking our expenses for two weeks and not have any overspending.
But most people can’t, so you need something easy to make your budgeting life simple. If budgeting isn’t simple you won’t stick with it.
I updated my May budget last week using EveryDollar. I think it had about ten days worth of bill payments and credit card transactions to update in EveryDollar.
Guess how long it took me to drag and drop thirtyish transactions?
10 minutes.
What I ended up spending half my time on is:
What the heck is this Amazon charge for? And this Amazon charge? And this Amazon charge?
I get about 20–30 of those Amazon charges a month. I hate you Amazon Prime! I love you Amazon Prime…
With EveryDollar, I’m spending about 30 minutes a month budgeting.
With Mint I was spending 30 minutes a week.
Another reason I left Mint – the interface is old and clunky. You can’t beat EveryDollar’s drag and drop feature.
So for $8.25 a month, I’m saving 90 minutes of time by switching to EveryDollar from Mint.
Yeah, I’ll take that EveryDay of the week.
Hello Mint. The hard way.
One thing I like to do when I have problems with customer no-service is write a letter to their CEO. I plan on mailing (a real letter!) to the CEO. Maybe I’ll get a response. If I do, I’ll be sure to post it. Heck, maybe they might even fix their software if someone knows how buggy it is!
I’m very happy with EveryDollar. Check out my in-depth EveryDollar review.
If you value your time, I think you will be too. It’s worth trying the Pro version for 15-days free to see what you think.
Question: Have you checked out EveryDollar yet? Please leave a comment below.
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