Show HN: Budgetable (It's better than Mint)

[ryanbales]

There is so much innovation that can and needs to be done in the online banking space, Mint hasn't innovated in years, so I decided to.

Some of my experiments...

http://budgetable.com

[jack-r-abbit]

> Aggregates all your accounts, balances, net worth charts, budgets... all that good stuff. It's fully functional personal finance software.

I'm a Mint user. Mint does all those things, no? I have all my accounts pulling in (credit, checking, savings, mortgages, car loans). I can see the balance on each. I can see all my transactions for each (both combined and filtered separately). I can manually enter transactions until they make it through the system (like entering a check so you don't forget that deduction if the person takes 3 weeks to cash it). I can build budgets. I have a grand total of my net worth (assets - debts). I get alerts when budgets are exceeded or finance fees were added. I'd say Mint has put together a nice set of features. So what else are you doing that Mint doesn't?

Edit: oh. I watched the video. So it sounds like the only thing it does that Mint doesn't do is go look for coupons/deals for the places it sees I've spent money. That has minimal value to me. Certainly not enough to make me switch from Mint. It might appeal to others not already using (or not heavily using) Mint.

[ryanbales]

In addition to addressing about the ~10,000 common problems which are unresolved on Mint's support site? http://satisfaction.mint.com/mint

Deal alerts on your favorite stores, detects wasteful spending, a budget that actually works, deal aware transactions, API, Many many more charts/graphs, etc

[jack-r-abbit]

Cool. I don't have any issues and I don't need the deals features so I guess I'm not your target. Best of luck to you.

[ryanbales]

Thanks! - And I appreciate the feedback.

[Urgo]

I decided not to sign up for an invite but you almost had me. About 10 years ago or so a friend of mine and I were talking about creating something that analyzed what things you bought and then told you about where you can get it cheaper. At that time it really would't have been possible.

It's true I have seen deal alert sites but I thought you had the whole package here. I know you can't really find out what I bought at my supermarket by just looking at the credit card bill, but it'd be super neat if your site didn't tell me about the deals at supermarket A (I get that spam already) but instead find out that I buy skim milk, and let me know that supermarket B right down the road actually has it on sale this week so I should get it there instead. I want to keep buying the things I'm buying but be able to do so cheaper. Just like a gas app that finds the cheapest station, I want to know where the cheapest version of everything is that I buy regularly w/o having to look through ads or search myself or even tell a system what I buy. Build that and you got me. :)

[bmelton]

I guess I'll be the first person to say that it looks really good. I can see how some folks might feel misled by the tag line, but even that's sort of a stretch (to me).

The landing page looks great. I did get the video bug, but that's small. Have you really done all this yourself? Looks like a TON of code.

I've also noticed Mint as being stagnant, specifically since Wesabe closed down and they were acquired, and have been hoping to see some sort of progress there. It isn't that it doesn't fully meet my needs, cause it does, but there are a TON of nice to haves that I want to see to make budgeting a lot easier that I have less and less hope of seeing with every day that passes without an update.

Can I ask what's on the roadmap?

[ryanbales]

Sure - and thanks for the comments/feedback. Yup, I built Budgetable by myself over the past year or so... I do UI and backend work so it worked out well.

I really tried to focus on making budgeting work.. to be honest, it was a very difficult task.. it's just a difficult problem to solve across the board (i.e., something that works for most people).

After getting through the beta, my focus will be on mobile.

[jnorthrop]

From your privacy policy:

We use this information [personal information] to:

- Assess the needs of your business to determine suitable products

- Send you marketing communications

- Administer contests and sweepstakes you entered, and notify you if you won

- Conduct research and analysis

You are planning to do an awful lot of stuff with my personal financial data. One of the nice things about Mint is their transparency as well as the control they give users over their own data.

[cleverjake]

I think you would convert a lot more if you used https://budgetable.com. Im not giving someone my account information unless it is encrypted. As a potential customer, lack of that makes me wonder how secure the backend is. Otherwise, looking forward to what you come up with

[ryanbales]

The actual web app is https. Thanks for the feedback.

[mtgx]

There's some bug with the video. When I try to skip through it, it shows me the original Play image, and I have to press on it again.

[ryanbales]

Thanks for discovering that. I'll get it fixed.

[callmeed]

Maybe I'm a minority, but I'm of the opinion that an app which touches my bank account:

1) Should put every page under SSL

2) Shouldn't use the word "beta"

[ryanbales]

Thanks for the feedback -- like I said, the actual app is SSL, but you make a good point in that it's probably a good idea to have https for even the "static" landing pages.

[michaelcampbell]

Is there any possibility of checking to see if "my" bank or financial institution is covered without having to sign up?

[dieselz]

Looks nice, but maybe you could be more specific than "Radically changing how you manage money"

[ryanbales]

Thanks for the feedback -- I'm going to do some A/B testing with that title text. It's definitely a difficult thing to get right.

[nickpresta]

Do you have a mobile application or a mobile-friendly site?

[ryanbales]

Not yet, but it's a top priority of course.

[dannyr]

I suggest using a more appropriate title. It's misleading.

[ryanbales]

Yeah, still need to do some A/B testing around that.

[dannyr]

A/B Testing? I'm talking about the post title here in HN.

[jack-r-abbit]

ah... true. Something like "Show HN: Budgetable (It's better than Mint)" probably would have worked.

[ryanbales]

Let's try it.

[middle2000lb]

Will there be an API for my data?

[ryanbales]

Yes

[danmatthews]

Looks great. Thanks!

[rorrr]

What does this have to do with Mint? This is yet another coupon site that limits you to only the stores you already shop at.

[ryanbales]

Aggregates all your accounts, balances, net worth charts, budgets... all that good stuff. It's fully functional personal finance software.

[youngdev]

Ryan,

Nice design. Just signed up for beta invite. Do you mind sharing your tech stack used for front-end and backend?

[ryanbales]

Thanks - I'd rather not go into details about the backend stack publicly given the nature of the app -- requires intense paranoia about security, but hit me up on Twitter. @Budgetable