Monarch Money is the best app for budgeting that individuals, couples, and families can use to manage, control, and track their finances. Recently Mint was closed down and Monarch Money is taking its place by positioning itself as an alternative by providing individuals with different tools for budgeting such as net worth tracking, managing investments, and setting goals. This Monarch Money review highlights how It helps a large group of people who want to organize their finances or teams (like friends or partners) who want to reach financial goals together.

Key Features of Monarch Money

Budgeting: 

Monarch Money uses a zero-based budgeting feature that guarantees that every dollar has a purpose. You can easily see if you're spending too much money or if you need to change your spending method. Besides this, You can also use other budgeting methods if you prefer. 

It categorizes transactions automatically for you, but it also provides options to change them manually. The possibilities are great when you make your own categories and decide how much you can spend from them at any moment. You can easily check if you are within your budget or if you need to change your spending habits.

Net Worth Tracking: 

In order to have a complete overview of your finances, Monarch Money connects all your financial accounts such as bank accounts, credit cards, and investments to one place. So, it's easy to see how much money you've made over time. Because it automatically calculates your total wealth and shows it to you in a simple picture or chart.

Investment Tracking: 

You can connect your investment accounts to see your investment and your overall portfolio performance. Make sure your investments match what you want to achieve and how much risk you can handle.

Financial Goals: 

Set up easily reachable, trackable, and timely financial objectives (like saving for a house, paying off debts, or preparing for sudden emergencies). Also, Monitor your progress toward your goals and stay motivated.

Reports and Insights: 

You can create multiple reports on your income, spending, net worth, and much more. Also, you can understand your financial data through easy-to-understand graphs and charts. Look at your income and expenses to find better ways to use your money and improve your spending patterns. In this way, you can better understand what you earn and what you spend. 

Multi-User Support: 

You can add your family members or partners to share a view and help you with budgeting, for free.

User Experience

• Interface: It has a well-organized and simple-to-use interface that helps you navigate and find the information with no effort. You can also switch to a dark mode if you are using it in a dark room.

• Mobile App: You can use the app on both iPhones and Android phones. It works just like the website. Also, you will get instant updates about any changes to your budget or new findings.

• Account Linking: Monarch uses safe and secure connections when linking with other financial platforms  And its transactions are automatically imported and sorted into categories. But some people have said they sometimes get disconnected from their accounts. If this happens, they might need to connect again.

Available Accounts

Monarch Money supports a wide variety of account types including:

• Checking accounts

• Savings accounts

• Investment accounts

• Credit cards

• Loans

• Cryptocurrency accounts

• Home and vehicle values

• Manual accounts

Financial Planning and Goal Setting

Monarch offers you income and expenses forecasting which can help you predict your future income and expenses so you can better understand your spending habits. This might be especially useful for retired people. Its Spending Insights tool helps you detect areas where you might be spending too much money and helps you make new money goals that you can monitor all in one place.

Investment Tracker

Monarch Money offers you an investment tracker feature that syncs data from different investment accounts, which helps you see how all your investments are doing in one place. It also shows you what types of investments you have (like stocks or bonds) and how much money is in each type. 

It also provides basic information about cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin so in this way, you can see how they compare to other ways of investing your money.

Net Worth Tracker

The comprehensive net worth tracker in Monarch Money monitors a wide range of assets and liabilities (things you owe) such as bank accounts, investments, loans, property, cars, and even unique stuff investments like paintings or collectibles.

Recurring Bills and Subscriptions

Monarch Money introduces a new feature as a recurring bill and subscription reminder which helps you keep track of bills when they need to be paid and sends reminders a few days before the due date. Therefore you will always be updated on your payments so you don't have to pay any late fees.

Transaction Rules

Another benefit is that there are transaction rule features that help you change the names of transactions to make them easier to organize and understand. This will make it easier to keep track of and create reports.

Personalized Advice

Additionally, there is an Advice Wizard tool which was developed by financial consultants to act honestly and responsibly, always putting the interests of others first. This wizard tool gives you personalized solutions to common financial questions. So, users get more help during their financial journey.

Pricing

Monarch Money offers two types of subscriptions: you can pay monthly, or you can pay for a whole year at once. Before using this application, new users can try this app for free before they decide to buy it.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Monarch Money helps you see your entire financial picture in one place, including your budget, net worth, investments, and financial goals.

• It has great tools for making a budget and tracking your progress toward your goals.

• The app and website are easy to use and understand.

• You can share your finances and work on your budget with others.

• Monarch Money takes your security seriously.

Cons

• The subscription might be a bit expensive.

• Sometimes there are problems connecting to your account.

• Some of the more complicated features could be easier to use.

Essential Features:

Security and Privacy

Monarch Money takes security seriously and keeps your money safe. They use strong codes, and encryptions, and offer you multi-factor authentication and regular security audits. It is safe to use because it follows all the necessary data protection rules and also it is transparent about data sharing and it never sells your personal information.

Customer Support

Monarch Money offers customer support that helps through email, phone calls, and live chat. Their users generally said that they get quick and useful responses.

Educational Resources

Monarch Money also offers a variety of educational resources which include budgeting tips, articles, newsletters, and webinars to help their clients make proper financial decisions.

Integrations

Moreover, Monarch Money also works with various third-party apps and services such as TurboTax, Simplifi by Quicken, Mint, etc., to make your money management easier.

Comparison to Competitors

Feature Monarch Money YNAB EveryDollar PocketGuard

Budgeting Framework Zero-based, flexible Zero-based Envelope Traditional

Net Worth Tracking Yes Yes No Yes

Investment Tracking Yes No No Limited

Multi-User Support Yes Yes Yes No

Free Version No No Yes (limited) Yes (limited)

Monarch Money Reviews and Testimonials

Lisa W. - "Monarch Money has transformed the way my husband and I handle our finances. We love the shared budgets and how we can track our goals together. The reports are super helpful and show us things about our spending we didn't even realize. Plus, we can keep an eye on our investments too. It's totally worth it!"

Chris G. - "After years of bouncing between budgeting apps, I've found my home with Monarch Money. The interface is clean and intuitive, the transaction categorization is spot-on, and the customizability is fantastic. I especially love the ability to create separate budgets for different goals. Highly recommend it!"

Mark B. - "While Monarch Money has a lot of potential, the constant sync issues with my smaller credit union are driving me crazy. Transactions often get missed or duplicated, and the customer support, while friendly, hasn't been able to resolve the problem. I'm considering switching back to my old app if this doesn't improve soon."

Is Monarch Money Safe?

Monarch Money uses safe ways to connect to banks, like Plaid. It only relies on your data, it can't change anything. To add an extra layer of protection, you might want to use multi-factor authentication.

Monarch Money vs Mint

On the other hand, it is hard to ignore that Monarch Money is a subscription-based service unlike Mint, which is free but shows ads. The second option gets more ad placement slots than the first choice because it's better in some ways.

How to Contact Monarch Money 

You can reach Monarch Money's customer support through their email at “support@monarchmoney.com”

Best Monarch Money alternatives

If you're looking for free options or alternatives in a specific financial category, you should consider Empower, Kubera, Lunch Money, or YNAB.

How to get started with Monarch Money

Setting up an account actually only took a few minutes because I used their account connection tool which, like all other tools on Monarch, had step-by-step instructions that were super easy to follow.

First, follow this link to open your account. This link will take you to their Welcome Page.

The next step in the process is providing your email. This is critical for ensuring you are who you say you are and for future communication from the Monarch team.

In an effort to ensure your security and privacy Monarch Money requires a verification code that they email to you. While some might think this additional step is unnecessary I believe that any additional security they can provide is welcome.

The next step is your basic password creation.

Then we start to get into the nitty gritty. You can choose to either setup your accounts manually or with their step by step connection guide. Here is a look at the manual setup page.

Monarch uses Plaid to link your bank accounts. Plaid is a third party data encryption tool. They use Advanced Encryption Standard and Transport Layer Security at or above industry standards to ensure your data stays safe.

Their landing/dashboard is visually appealing and provides all the most important information to your personal financial health. They try to keep it simple and not overwhelm you with data which I truly appreicate.

They also provide a crisp and clean account overview page.

They keep the user interface consistent and simplistic throughout making your financial data easy to understand and action upon. I love their transaction filters. This allows you to drill into certain types of spending habits to ensure you are on track.

The cash flow page, again, retains a familiar user interface. This consistency is important as an easy to use platform helps users interact with Monarch more frequently. It also reduces the learning curve which is a large hinderance for many software tools.

We all have the need to create a plan for our money. This is exactly what you are going to do in order to achieve your goals. Monarch is here to help you build your plan and achieve your goals. You can utilize their software to analyze your spending and create a plan based on your goals, or you can create your own plan. Either way, having a plan is one of the most important steps toward financial health and they have an outstanding tool to help you with that.

Here is their dashboard to track your plan.

Creating your goals has never been easier. Before you even start creating goals, Monarch will walk you through a tutorial of how their system takes you step by step to create the most impactful goals for your money.

Once you understand how to get your goals started Monarch will walk you step by step through the process. First, select the type of goal you want to set up.

Next you can name your goals.

Then iron out the details.

Last, track your goals over time with the same intuitive dashboard you know.

After you have walked through each and ever step in the setup process you can navigate back to the planning page and take a look at your financial forecast. While this tool is still in Beta mode it works well enough you give you a really great sense of how all your financial activity impacts you long term finances.

Conclusion:

In the world of personal finance apps, Monarch Money reviews consistently highlight that Monarch Money offers everything people look for in an application that is both simple and has many financial tools that help you take control of your finances. The app might seem expensive, but it's packed with useful features, is really easy to use, and several people can access it at the same time if you want to meet your financial goals, whether solo or as a family, Monarch Money is worth the cost.

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