A Simple Alternative to Monarch Money

Monarch is a lot of tool. Link your accounts and it tracks your investments, your net worth, your whole cash flow, and your spending, all in one dashboard. If you want to see your entire financial life in one place, it does that well, and it's the tool a lot of people moved to after Mint.

If your actual question is narrower, how much can I spend this month, you don't need all of that. You don't need to link your bank, and you don't need to pay Monarch's price. One number answers it. Here's how the two compare, and how the one-number version works.

What Monarch does well

Monarch is genuinely powerful. It pulls every account into one place, tracks your investments and net worth alongside your spending, projects your cash flow forward, and handles shared finances for couples. It charges a subscription instead of selling your data, a cleaner model than the free apps it replaced. For someone who wants the full financial picture on one screen, Monarch is a strong pick, and it earns its following.

A different question

Monarch and Left Unspent are built around different questions.

Monarch centers on "where is all my money, and how is my whole financial life doing." It's a live dashboard for your accounts, your net worth, and your investments, updating itself as your linked accounts move. Left Unspent centers on "how much can I spend this month." It has a net-worth view and a retirement view too, both filled in by you, but the monthly number is the center, the thing you open it for.

If the monthly-spending question is the one you actually have, Monarch's live dashboard is a lot of machine for it, and most of what it tracks is detail you'll set up, glance at, and rarely act on.

The one-number version

Left Unspent was built around that one question from the start. You enter your income, your fixed costs, and what you set aside for the bills that aren't monthly. What's left is your One Number, the money you have left unspent this month. No accounts to link, no dashboard to learn. (The walkthrough shows the subtraction with real figures.)

From there, one card does the tracking Monarch would need your linked accounts for. Put your discretionary spending on a single card, pay it off monthly, and check the balance against your number. That balance is your live gauge, so nothing has to sync, and nothing breaks when a bank connection drops. One number to stay under, one balance to check it against.

What you give up

The tradeoff is live, automatic depth. Monarch links your accounts, so your net worth and investments update on their own and it can project from real balances. Left Unspent has net-worth and retirement views, but you keep them current yourself, and it doesn't track investments the way a linked app does. If you want your whole picture updating on its own, Monarch is built for that, and Left Unspent isn't trying to match it.

What Left Unspent gives you is the monthly number, fast, private, and cheaper, with the longer-view tabs there when you want them. If the monthly question is the one that actually keeps you up, that's a good trade.

See your number

You can find your One Number on paper, or drop your income, fixed costs, and set-asides into our calculator and have it in about a minute. No account, and nothing you enter leaves your browser.

When you want it to keep running, the app holds your number month to month and gives you the one figure to check your card against. Personal is $9 / month or $79 / year, with a 14-day trial and no card to start. Monarch runs $14.99 / month or $99.99 / year, with a Plus tier at $199 / year.

Want the full side-by-side against Monarch, YNAB, and the rest? Here's the comparison.

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