What is MindsBudget?

Our Purpose

MindsBudget is a monthly financial review tool. Once a month, upload your bank statement — CSV, Excel, or PDF — and get a clear picture of where your money went, what recurring charges you're carrying, and how your financial health score changed from last month.

Most budgeting tools require you to connect your bank account and hand over your login credentials. We believe that is unnecessary and carries real privacy risk. MindsBudget works entirely from files you export yourself. You upload what you choose, when you choose. You stay in control.

MindsBudget is built on a straightforward premise: financial clarity should not require giving a third party access to your bank. The tool is designed to be transparent, educational, and honest — not to sell you financial products, not to monetize your data, and not to provide personalized financial advice. Every score is explained in plain language inside your review. Nothing here is a black box.

How It Works

How the Financial Health Score Works

Every score is computed deterministically from six components derived from your uploaded statement data. Each component is labeled and explained inside your Monthly Financial Review — you can see exactly how every point was earned or lost. No opaque algorithms. Every score is reproducible from the same inputs.

• Recurring Obligation Ratio — your fixed monthly commitments (housing, utilities, insurance, subscriptions, loan payments) as a share of average income. A lower ratio means more financial flexibility.
• Spending Trend — whether your spending across tracked categories is improving or worsening over time. Requires at least two months of history. Trending down earns more points than trending up.
• Subscription Burden — your recurring subscription spending as a percentage of income. Subscription creep is one of the most common causes of gradual budget deterioration.
• Debt / Installment Ratio — your installment loan and debt payments relative to income. No installment debt detected earns maximum points in this component.
• Cash Flow Stability — detected financial stress signals such as spending volatility, deficit months, or spending spikes. Fewer signals earn more points.
• Forecast Confidence — how reliably your recurring payment patterns can be predicted from uploaded history. Improves automatically as you add additional months.

Scores range from 0–100 and map to five grades: Excellent (85+), Good (70–84), Fair (55–69), Needs Attention (40–54), and Critical (below 40). The full component breakdown is visible inside every Monthly Financial Review.

Privacy First

Your financial data is yours. We do not sell it, share it, or use it to build advertising profiles. Files are processed in memory and not stored on disk. Transaction data is stored in your account only to power your dashboard — and you can request deletion at any time.

See our full Privacy Policy for details.

Supported File Formats

• CSV — any bank export with date, description, and amount columns. Split debit/credit columns are supported. Headerless exports (e.g. Wells Fargo) are auto-detected.
• Excel (.xlsx) — standard spreadsheet exports from online banking. Column headers are auto-detected across multiple sheets.
• PDF (text-based) — text-selectable e-statements. Scanned/image PDFs are not supported — use CSV or Excel for best results.
• Plain text (.txt) — tab- or comma-delimited transaction exports accepted.

Free Tools & Guides

• Monthly Budget Calculator — see your expense-to-income ratio instantly, no account needed
• Financial Health Score Quiz — answer 5 questions and get a score from 0–100
• Monthly Spending Review Guide — a complete 15-minute monthly review process
• How to Find All Your Recurring Subscriptions — every place recurring charges hide
• All Free Financial Tools · All Financial Guides

Questions? Email support@mindsbudget.com.  ·  Privacy Policy ·  Terms of Use