I talked about finding a new money tracking system once I found out that Mint was going away. Mint was a huge part of my life as I was constantly tracking our finances and budget. I would obsess over how much we were spending on groceries and watch our net worth slowly grow. Having a budgeting tool allowed me to achieve my FIRE goals, I felt the need to keep something like it in my life. But now I wonder if I need a tool like this anymore
I looked at many options and ultimately decided to just try Fidelity’s Full View. It is a very basic tool, but it does connect to all my accounts, and the majority of my finances is already in Fidelity.
I found that Fidelity Full View only works in Chrome. It also has an interface that makes me struggle to understand what I’m looking at. It offers a view into my total net worth, which is really all that I care to track currently. I can also see that number in the planning view in the Fidelity iOS app. Here’s the best part through, it’s free!
Also, literally as I was working on this post, Fidelity released an updated version of their “Full View.” It now works in Firefox and has an early 2010s feel instead of an early 2000s feel. I tried playing with the budgeting portion of the page, and it felt like Mint did years ago. It even automatically created a budget for me.
Once I started filling out the budget, I was reminded of all my subscriptions that I just have in a spreadsheet. I began to wonder if paying $100/year might save me $50/year and give me peace of mind. But are these other services really that much better than Fidelity? Would they even connect all my accounts like Fidelity does?
I did the seven-day trial for Copilot Money, and it has a beautiful UX, but I just don’t feel like I am going to be using it enough to justify the $95/year. I did enjoy having a separate section for subscriptions and recurring bills, but even if I am paying for a service I don’t use, it won’t cost me more than $95.
It did make me think about using a service to manage my significant finances, however. I don’t know if I want to give away 0.5% of my money every year, but maybe there is a reasonable robo-advisor out there?
