By Marc C. Shaffer
In the wake of Mint.com’s discontinuation, many users have found a new home for their financial tracking needs with Monarch Money. This powerful tool offers a range of features that make it a worthy successor to Mint and an invaluable asset for anyone looking to gain better control over their finances.
While Monarch Money comes with a subscription fee of $14.99 monthly (or $99.99 annually), its comprehensive suite of features may help justify the cost for those serious about managing their money effectively. Here’s what makes Monarch Money stand out:
- Goal-oriented savings: Allocate your savings to specific goals and track your progress over time.
- Proactive financial oversight: Set up transaction notifications to identify excessive spending, unwanted subscriptions, and potential fraud.
- Financial trends oversight: Easily track assets and liabilities to monitor net worth trends.
- Spending insights: Compare current spending to previous months, helping you stay on budget.
- Purchase pattern recognition: Identify multiple charges from the same merchant, keeping you aware of potential overspending.
- Advisor collaboration: Share access with your financial advisor, enabling them to review your information and provide tailored recommendations.
- Holistic financial planning: Use Monarch Money as a central hub to discuss and manage all aspects of your financial plan.
You may find the biggest benefit of using Monarch Money is the clarity, confidence, and peace of mind it brings to your financial life. By providing a clear picture of your financial health and spending habits, it empowers you to make informed decisions and stay on track with your financial goals.
Monarch Money also offers an excellent mobile app platform for users who prefer to access their financial information on the go. The app provides a well-organized, user-friendly interface that allows you to view your financial data, track spending, and monitor your goals from your smartphone. This mobile accessibility helps ensure that you can stay on top of your finances anytime, anywhere, making it easier to make informed financial decisions in real-time.
A Recent Client Experience
A recent review session with a client using Monarch Money highlighted the platform’s effectiveness in uncovering financial opportunities and overlooked assets. Within just a few minutes of examining the Monarch Money dashboard together, we were able to identify several key areas for improvement:
- Investing excess cash: We noticed a significant amount of idle cash in the client’s accounts, which led to a discussion about potential investment strategies to put this money to work.
- Maximizing yield on cash holdings: We identified an opportunity to recommend transitioning cash into a money market account earning 5%, significantly boosting the return on the client’s liquid assets.
- Uncovering forgotten assets: The comprehensive view provided by Monarch Money revealed an older 401(k) retirement plan account that hadn’t been previously discussed or included in our financial planning.
These discoveries, made possible by the clear and comprehensive view provided by Monarch Money, allowed us to quickly make impactful recommendations that could improve the client’s financial situation.
Importance of Comprehensive Setup
It’s crucial to note that the effectiveness of Monarch Money is directly related to how comprehensively it’s set up. It is strongly recommended to link all of your financial accounts to the platform, including:
- Assets and liabilities
- Credit cards
- Bank accounts
- Investment accounts
- Employer-provided retirement plan accounts
- Qualified and non-qualified accounts
By ensuring all accounts are linked, you create a complete financial picture that allows for more accurate analysis and more effective financial planning.
For those transitioning from Mint.com or looking for a comprehensive financial tracking solution, Monarch Money offers a robust platform that could help you take control of your finances and work more effectively with your financial advisor.
Our team is available to discuss Monarch Money in more detail and answer any questions you may have about its features and benefits, including its mobile app functionality. If you’ve already set up your Monarch Money account and would like to collaborate with us as your advisor, we can guide you through the process of inviting someone on our team to access your financial information securely. This collaboration could help enhance the quality of financial advice you receive and ensure all aspects of your financial life are considered in your planning discussions.
Please note: At the time of publication, we found Monarch Money to be a viable money management tool. The option to create a Monarch Money account is your own and you should review all of the due diligence information available before making this decision.