
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.<p>Some of my experiments...<p>http://budgetable.com
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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.

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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.

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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. :)

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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.

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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.

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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

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

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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.

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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"

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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ryanbales
Let's try it.

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middle2000lb
Will there be an API for my data?

~~~
ryanbales
Yes

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danmatthews
Looks great. Thanks!

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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.

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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

