If you're new here, you may want to learn what this site is about. I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Tomorrow I’ll be participating in a brainstorming session about online personal finance tools. The people behind this workshop want to know what the average person is looking for when she chooses a tool to manage her money. I promised to poll GRS readers for suggestions.
How I manage my money
For years, I’ve used Quicken to manage my money, both on Mac and PC. I’m using the Mac version now, and it’s way behind its PC cousin. The program has all the features I need to track my bank accounts, my investment accounts, and my business ventures, but these features are difficult to find and use, mired by a lousy interface.
Though I like the idea of an online personal finance tool, in practice I find they have too many barriers for me:
- They take too long to set up.
- They have limited functionality.
- They have annoying interface quirks.
For me to move to an online tool, it would have to offer fuss-free setup, not have a subscription-based income model (I’d rather pay a one-time fee), allow me to customize my transactions, and be able to track investments. I don’t really care about social networking stuff. I’m not that eager to compare my expenses with everybody else.
Meanwhile, I’m gradually moving to a paperless personal finance system. I’ve automated as many transactions as possible. I scan every important document that comes my way. I make regular backups of my data. I’d certainly give serious consideration to a tool that helped with this.
How you manage your money
How do you manage your money? What strategies do you use? What tools have you tried? What are you currently using? Do you manage your money on your computer with Excel, Quicken, or Microsoft Money? Do you manage it online with Wesabe, Mint, or Expensr?
What are the top three things you want out of a personal finance tool or service? Do you want to be able to budget? Connect to your investment account? Discuss money management with other users?
Finally, what are your biggest personal finance challenges? Becoming debt-free? Learning how to invest? Finding money to save? Resisting the temptation to spend?
March 27th, 2008 at 5:13 am
I use Quicken (mac) as a check register and keep track of my bank balances. I’ve never really learned about the other features. I haven’t had any investments until this week, so I might try to learn about that part of Quicken.
In addition, I use an Excel spreadsheet to track all transactions in a monthly-budget form (including CC transactions), so that I always know how much money I have left in the monthly budget, not just in my bank account or credit card. I also track my monthly savings here.
I did try Quicken Online, but when it marked every single debit card transaction (most of them) as POS/Check Card instead of going further like my bank does and adding the description (where I can figure out where the transaction was made), it became far too irritating and I quickly cancelled my account.
I would love to move both my check register (and investment tracking) and my Excel budget online. I was using Google Docs for the spreadsheet, but I have to design it on my home computer and then upload it to Google (to get all the details right just how I like them). And on this version of my budget, when I upload it, Google docs screws up the formatting. So lazily I have left the spreadsheet at home.
Will be interested to see what your post turns up, JD!
March 27th, 2008 at 5:19 am
I use Quicken which I find helpful for tracking our expenses. However, the Quicken budgeting tool has been a complete failure for us and Quicken up-keep is time intensive.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:34 am
I’m currently trying out both Quicken Online and Pearbudget. However, the most useful tools I use are spreadsheets I’ve created for myself.
Top 3 things I want to see:
* Importing: Automatic import of transactions from all of my accounts (banking and investment). I like the way Quicken Online imports and categorizes transactions, but it currently doesn’t handle my 401k.
* Budget tracking: So far I love the way Pearbudget handles this, but the fact that it has no automatic import is a problem.
* Bill pay: I haven’t seen this in either of the tools I’ve tried, but right now the only reason I’m logging into my bank’s online banking is to do bill pay and transfers. If I could do this from my personal finance tools instead, it would be great.
My biggest personal finance challenges are to resist my own temptations to impulse spend, and to convince my wife of the importance of sound personal finance (spend less than you earn, save for retirement, remain debt-free, etc).
March 27th, 2008 at 5:43 am
As a newbie to the whole financial responsibility thing, I’m still working out my system. Right now, I’ve created an Excel budget sheet and use my online banking tools. Bank of America allows you to create a budget in your online account and has some nice features with charts, etc.
An online tool would be great so that I could access it from work or home, but it would need to be easily customized. I’m working to get out of debt so it would be helpful to me to have access to discussion forums or help tips.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:47 am
We, family of 6, use atm debit cards with auto bill pay for fixed monthly expenses like mort, auto ins, phone, and etc. Also, use debit card for gas cause we can’t go in store and leave kids in car. The rest is cash for groceries, clothes, eating out, and other incidentals. Don’t use rewards cards and like the reduced risk of credit fraud among other benefits of cash. We tried quicken but quit after a month and stick to excel spreadsheets for budget, net worth, and other incidental tracking like how we spend the federal tax stimulus rebate. It took about three years of trial and error to get to a plan that was workable for us.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:54 am
I have used Microsoft Money for eons. I use it primarily as a check register, and love it for that purpose. I can always balance my account. (I could never do so on paper.) I also love being able to download my statement instead of having to enter transactions manually. I hate how intensive the newer versions of Money are. If my bank would support MSMoney 1998, I’d go back to it in a second.
I also use a Palm-based register system to track cash and credit card purchases. This program interfaces (though not very easily) with MSMoney.
I’ve never quite gotten the hang of using Money to track my retirement accounts, etc.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:57 am
I would highly, highly recommend a service I used daily called yodlee.com. As an account aggregator it does everything you need.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:58 am
I never got use to quicken. I use an excel spreasheet. i have inputted everything into mint.com and am trying that. it is nice to be able to look up all accounts on one site. i have the capability to save most accounts at say bank of america, but it doesn’t allow for what it thinks are duplicate accounts–that is, since my wife and i have indiv accounts at the same bank, it won’t allow both. mint.com does. the interface is easy. not all expenses are categorized necessarily correctly, but for the most part, i like it although i won’t be scrapping my excel spreadsheet anytime soon. i’ve customized the spreadsheet to fit all my needs, so it is hard to use anything else.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:58 am
I’m a longtime Quicken for Mac user (since the early 1990s) and have no complaints. It works for my purposes, but I don’t use most of its more complex features; it works fine as a basic accounting tool.
My main hesitations about using an online service are:
1. What happens if the provider goes out of business? I’d have to be confident that there’s a way to export my data in a format that would be useable by other programs (such as Excel or Quicken) and keep it on my own computer.
2. Subscription fees: Like JD, I don’t like these. If you use just one or two online services, the subscription fees aren’t a big deal. But as more software and services move to the online model, those subscription fees can nickel and dime you to death. The firm 37signals, which is one of the leaders in online subscription-based tools (Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, Highrise) has been seeing complaints about this from customers who subscribe to multiple services.
3. Security. Even though Wesabe and others are confident that the financial data of their subscribers is secure, I still think a lot of people (myself included) are reluctant to put their financial info online.
The ideal money management solution for me would be a non-proprietary tool that runs on my own computer, using a program like Excel (or Apple’s Numbers) that I can be confident will stick around and will not force me to upgrade every couple of years.
Other thoughts: One of the most attractive features for me is to be able to receive and pay all my bills through one interface. I was able to do something like that when Quicken directly connected to my bank, and it made everything much easier — I could reconcile my bank account in a couple of minutes, pay my bills in a snap…it was great! My current bank doesn’t have that capability so I have to enter everything manually in Quicken. I actually don’t mind that so much as I feel more in touch with my finances because entering data by hand forces me to pay more attention, but it is a lot less convenient. For me, the online banking functionality is the main selling point for a program such as Quicken.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:59 am
For day-to-day management I use Quicken2006 running on a PC and have been using Quicken releases since 1986. Using scheduled payment function each month is loaded in two installments that coincide on paydays. I have been ebanking through my credit union since 1994. Direct deposit is mandatory where I work, automatic distribution to my accounts, my wife’s checking and savings. I have more than 70% of regular payments on either draft or scheduled release. Investment portfolios are all online and receive only e-statements. Finally I have been using Insurance Information Institute’s terrific “Know your stuff” for household inventory and that allows storing scanned sales receipts with the inventory. I do keep a full-picture budget spreadsheet on Excel that I compare Quicken reports to projected budget expenditures at the end of each year, but I don’t really think it is worth the extra work now.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:02 am
I have a very simple and very successful strategy for keeping track of my money, no software required. I keep a money journal in a notebook, writing down every penny that comes in or goes out. I write myself notes and make plans for paying bills and encourage myself to be more frugal–all right in the same journal. For me, managing my money required first of all a change in attitude toward myself. On the front of my money journal, I pasted a picture of a Victorian family in all their finery, posing solemnly for the camera. I wrote under the photo, “We have enough. We are enough. We do enough.” Then I pretended that I was a member of that family. I realized that I don’t need to keep buying to be “enough.” I, myself, am already quite sufficient. Once I truly felt this, I was able to stop shopping and spending for entertainment and giving elaborate gifts to hopefully make people like me or be grateful to me. All my relationships as well as my budget have benefited from this change. And all it takes is a notebook and a pen!
March 27th, 2008 at 6:06 am
This probably isn’t the kind of answer you’re looking for, but we don’t actually use any fancy tools to manage our finances. We don’t keep a checkbook or track every penny.
We have an Excel spreadsheet for our annual budget. Once a year, we list our monthly salaries at the top, then list off all our various expenses. We review past bank statements (online) and determine what our monthly costs our for regular recurring expenses (phone, cable, water, gas, etc.) and add those to the spreadsheet. If the expenses are more than the salaries, we adjust the variable expenses (gifts, monthly “play” money, etc.). We NEVER reduce the amounts dedicated to retirement savings. Those are considered inflexible.
Anyway, we try to have a small ($300 or so) surplus in the monthly budget to cover any miscalculations or surprises.
Then we forget about it.
When a bill comes, we pay it. We don’t update any software or anything, because we already know that our monthly incomes can cover all the expected expenses. We have our “play” money that we can spend each month on whatever we want (entertainment, travel, whatever), but we never touch the money in the account except for bills listed in the budget. Everything works out.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Online banking for paying bills and tracking other accounts (ie. savings, CDs, Mortgage, auto loan, etc.). Old fashion Pen and paper for budget and keeping my checkbook balance. I try not to write things twice. I enjoy this blog and am looking forward to reading more of the comments.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:12 am
I am boring and just a variety of methods. I use my good old checkbook and I use Google Documents to set up my budget and keep an idea of how everything is doing. I like it b/c it’s free and I can access it anywhere.
I also track my purchases on my Palm.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:16 am
I’ve just started really tracking my expences, I’m new to the whole fiscal responsibility thing. I wanted a online tool to track my expences, I also wanted it to be available from my cell phone, so I could check a budget category to see if I had money.
Buxfer (http://www.buxfer.com) to the rescue. Web 2.0 coolness, auto sync from my bank account, auto tagging of expences, budgets and categories, txt and email alerts. It’s cool. A month in and I’m digging it.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:19 am
I tried switching to one of the older computer programs (Quicken I think) but I have been using paper and pencil for years now and am comfortable with that method.
I know that it is ancient. AT least the final results are easy to read because I will use red, green, or black ink depending on the entry type.
I print out a blank spread sheet every two weeks and fill in the rows with each debt and deposit.
I break my paper records in to HouseHold (all the day to day plus yearly; e.g., car insureance, expenses); Retirement accounts, Taxable accounts, and other (safe deposit box, cash on hand etc.).
It works for me and forces me to know where my money is going. True adding up the various columns by hand does led to some errors but it is not that difficult.
My biggest goal is early retirement (at age 49 1/2) which will happen in 7 years.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:19 am
We use Quicken on the PC.
As far as online services, as a computer guy who has worked as a computer security analyst, I’m a bit nervous about putting all of my financial information in one spot.
Let’s just say I know the “sins” of the security realm. The thing to keep in mind is that, much like finances, it’s a game of managed risks. Your vendors are doing their best to keep your information safe because they know it is central to their business.
However, they have to balance security with other business requirements. For instance, most people want easy access to their information without having to use “special magic”. “Special magic” technologies are enormously expensive and hard to use. But from a security standpoint, the “special magic” technologies are the best. These things include two-factor authentication (similar in concept to ATM cards, with a PIN). They are hard and expensive to manage on a large scale.
And, authentication is only 1 part of the 7 areas of security that need to be managed.
[Addendum: I'm not trying to dissuade you from using these services, but it is good to know some of the risks up front when you do. I am tempted to use them but I don't think I will in the near term.]
March 27th, 2008 at 6:20 am
I’m old school - nothing beats a custom Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for my purposes. I have a workbook with ten or so tabs that I’ve designed including a checking ledger, retirement tracker, cash & investment tracker, networth calculator, etc. I have it stored on an encrypted flash drive and back it up once a week or so. No account numbers, nothing personalized that anyone could use to identify the person behind the numbers.
I am hesitant to input anything online that requires account number entry. I figure no one is as protective of my data as I am. I would not be against using something that I updated manually, however that sort of defeats the purpose of building an online interface to show real-time balances.
If I were to eventually move online I would love to see a system that uses a pin or some other non-descript account identifier rather than a password or account number for each financial institution. Of course, this would all have to be coordinated with the institutions, but it would be nice if I could enter something like, “542322fd” and it translate to my savings account at the Bank of Frugal. This way, there is no risk of sharing my account number, my online banking password, or any personal information associated with my account. I’ve yet to try an online application that didn’t ask for at least one of those to “connect” to my bank accounts.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:21 am
Online bill pay, automatic transfers into 401K, Roth, etc but for daily expenses I use an old fashioned ledger. I write it all down by hand…
Personal issues: We’re out of consumer debt and student loan debt and have been for awhile…so now we just have mortgage debt (for our house and a piece of property we own adjacent to it) but I find it very hard to send extra money toward it when it seems so big in my mind…like it’ll always be there…I’d like to figure out how long it would take us to pay it off…i.e. 500 extra a month would be X number of years or 200 extra a month would be this many years.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:21 am
I started using mint about 2 months ago, and I really don’t like it. It’s aimed at me and my generation, but I would almost rather use a more tedious program than mint because the program is too smart. It should be more intuitive and allow me to break down the expenses the way I want, not the way it thinks I want them.
I need to try out some of the others, but I’m still pretty much dead set on creating my own in excel…
Daniel @ Young and Frugal
March 27th, 2008 at 6:23 am
I have been using Microsoft Money for years now and like it well enough not to change to something else. It has some quirks like when it classifies things incorrectly but I think those types of problems are evident in other types of software so it is not a big deal to me.
I also recently started using Mint but I do not rely on it to keep my finances in order.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:24 am
When I first set out to organize my finances I looked at a lot of different tools like MS Money, Quicken, GNU Cash, and some of the online tools. Unfortunately, none of them were offering quite what I was looking for so, being the geek that I am, I just put it together in Excel. It took me a LOT longer to setup, but improving it gradually over the years is a process that I’ve enjoyed. I have one tab to put in expenses & income (either manual entry or downloaded from my bank or credit card website), one tab to track net worth, one tab to track the cash flow in my chequing account, and one tab which sums all the individual expenses up and shows actual spending vs budget amount for each category in my budget. I’ve also added a few graphs and such so I can easily see where my money is being spent.
I realize that this isn’t for everyone because the setup time is so high. Being a software developer, this type of thing is appealing to me though. Now that it’s setup, it generally takes about 20 minutes per week to update it and make sure that everything is on track.
I can’t really see myself ever moving to an online tool. I’m much more comfortable and familiar with Excel so I don’t think they’d be any easier to use. The only benefit that I can see is that I’d be able to access it anywhere, but I’m not sure that’s really something I need or want.
Basically, I don’t see any problem that is solved by switching to an online tool.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:33 am
I use Moneydance. It’s cheaper than Quicken and is cross platform. It also doesnt throw a bunch of ads in your face when you are trying to cncentrate on saving money.
I also really like how it can directly download my transactions from my bank! Not a lot of Finanace programs can do that.
Even better, unlike Quicken, the people at Moneydance are resposive when you email them. It’s not like shooting an email ino the void.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:35 am
I use an excel spreadsheet to track, online bill pay through my bank to pay.
One thing I’ve never found in money management software is the ability to take my paycheck (when it’s received) and then disperse it into different “accounts” (really budget categories). Then purchases are deducted against the account. I really want to know at a glance how much money I have in my grocery fund, not what my checking account balance is. Does anyone have experience with an app that will give me something like this? My excel spreadsheet works fine, but it could be better (I may write my own app one of these days).
March 27th, 2008 at 6:36 am
I am a long-time Quicken user and rely on it heavily to manage all my savings and investment accounts. The budgeting piece isn’t that great, so I have my own spreed sheet. I love the look of Mint, but I am just not comfortable storing my whole financial life out there off my own pc. Its so personal I’d really be worried about security. I’m already being issued a new credit card due to a sercurity breach with a grocery store.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:36 am
I’ve used MS Money for probably 10 years now, mostly because it was included in the standard s/w pack that came with my PC(s). Probably unlike most people, I love tracking our expenses, so that I can find *where* our money is going and also track our overall networth as it changes over time. It’s also really handy at tax time when you can sort out what you’ve paid to charities, etc.
For budgeting, I find nothing beats an Excel sheet.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:38 am
Ah, one of my favorite topics.
I use two main tools: Quicken and Excel on my Mac, with the data on an encrypted disk image. (I don’t use Quicken’s or Excel’s password protection, because it’s probably not as good as what Apple uses on disk images.
In Quicken, I track all of my deposit and credit accounts: savings, checking, car loan, college loan, mortgages, credit cards, escrow (I did this even before I was escrowing for myself), IRAs, flexible benefits (FSA), PayPal, money loaned out (or pending rebates on purchases made), etc.
JD, you’re right that the Mac version of Quicken is WAY BEHIND its Windows cousin: I find that Quicken’s budget features are lacking, and that’s why I use Excel. I have several spreadsheets that I use, and I will describe those in a moment.
I have multiple checking accounts - one for billpay (at ING Direct, and into which my direct deposit goes), and one for monthly expenses (at a local credit union, and the only one for which I use debit cards). The reason for this separation is that any problems in my debit account will not affect any billpay activities - that is, my mortgage payment will never bounce because of illegitimate charges to my debit card.
I have the following Excel workbooks, each of which I will describe briefly, and will supply more details upon request:
- primary spreadsheet: this wraps everything together, and is where I track my monthly budget. It shows my expenses as well, so I can predict where I will be in the coming months. Originally this was created to give me an exact figure I could send to credit card companies (when I was getting out of CC debt) yet still have money at the end of the month (I didn’t want to send them too much money, and then not be able to pay something else off)
- monthly spending checking account: this has one sheet per category in the monthly spending account. The sheets are simply ledgers, one sheet per category. There is a summary sheet in the workbook that gives me an at-a-glance view of how I am doing for the month
- Escrow account - similar to the monthly spending account, with a summary page and one page per escrowed category (homeowner’s insurance, HOA dues, auto tax, property tax, etc)
- Savings account - similar to the monthly spending account, with a summary page and one page per savings category (emergency fund, etc)
- Fuel economy workbook - one sheet per car; the real reason I have this is because I’m Type A, but it has practical benefits too: I can predict with very good accuracy when my car will hit the mileage for its next service; this helps me escrow properly for auto service needs.
- medical reimbursement workbook - this is used to track my EOBs and FSA expenses (I can’t submit for FSA reimbursement until insurance has paid me, so I track the status of the claims)
On billpay: I pay nearly everything through ING Direct’s billpay feature. Like the next commenter, I prefer PUSH billpay to PULL billpay. Here’s my setup:
- charity: handwritten check
- cable, gas, electricity, trash: all done by push from ING
- cellphone: paid manually with CC
- mortgages: automatic push from ING
- escrows: automatic transfer at ING
- local phone: automatic CC payment
- NetFlix: automatic CC payment (when we had it)
- college loan: automatic PULL from ING by creditor
- insurance: automatic PULL from ING by insurer
I am happy to provide any more details about my system, if anyone is interested.
—–
My biggest personal finance challenge is spending money on myself. I am so dedicated to getting out of debt and taking care of the other things that I need to do that I neglect spending money on myself - I neglect enjoying my money. I have about $500 in Christmas money that I have yet to spend - why?? I don’t know…
March 27th, 2008 at 6:39 am
I started out with a DIY Excel spreadsheet that tracked all my expenses (categorized by type) and catalogued all my debts and savings … that really helped me get a sense of where my money went. I did it on Google Docs so that my husband and I could access it from work. Because it was just a record, not including any account numbers, I wasn’t concerned with that info leaking out (who cares how much I spend on groceries?).
I am currently using AceMoney to track expenses. It has some benefits over my Excel spreadsheet (I can more easily tell if I have miscalculated something, for instance, because it handles tracking of expenses across debit, credit and cash accounts) but even though it’s got fancy reports, I think I found my ad-hoc Excel sheet more clear about whether I was on track to meet my goals. I have tried a number of online tools, and Microsoft Money, in the past but found they overcomplicated things. I spent too much time tweaking the system and not enough time analyzing the data.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Quicken on the PC. We download transactions and reconcile everything once a week or so. We use Quicken to track, categorize, and review spending. We’re not budgeters; we’re trimmers and adjusters.
Once every month or two, we look at where the money’s going and adjust plans accordingly. About every 6-12 months, we talk about what we want to be doing in the Big Picture and the Long Term.
I pay bills online as much as I can. PUSH ONLY — in other words, I must initiate the transaction. No autopay. We probably write about 8 checks/month.
As for our goals, we are debt-free (except for mortgage), have college savings for the kids set aside, are maxing out retirement savings, and trying to start a rental real estate empire.
DH is a stay-at-home dad, so “buying him” a flexible part-time job that halves our housing costs, gives us another income stream, and (hopefully) takes advantage of the current real-estate market seems like a reasonable risk to take now.
Our ideal lifestyle would be to each work 20-30 hours/week and make enough to have adequate insurance and keep saving. DH has been “semi-retired” as a SAHD with our two kids for more than 6 years while I work full time, and we have about $850k net worth (married with slightly negative numbers 14 years ago). We’re slowly, slowly moving in that direction!
March 27th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Pen, Paper and an accordian file.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Like HollyP, I have been using Microsoft Money since the 90s. Overall I like it, but it has grown very cumbersome during the last few years. It takes forever to open (at least 20 minutes) and it doesn’t automatically update my accounts anymore, I have to do it manually. I wish I could go back to an old version too.
I use most of the tools in Money: the check register, the budget tool, the reports, etc.
I recently signed up for Quicken Online and I really love that I can have all my accounts in one place and check my balances from anywhere… but I was expecting more. Like bill pay, a budget tool, and better reporting.
If I could find an online service that had most of the features of Money, that would be ideal. I wouldn’t even mind paying a subscription fee, as long as it was reasonable.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:49 am
I have online banking set up for all of my accounts (Check and Savings at ING, Credit cards at Citibank and Bank of America). I then manage all of my spending via my Excel spreadsheet you featured about a month ago.
I base my purchasing decisions largely on the excel spreadsheet. It doesn’t, however, follow my bank account balances (which is on purpose), so I check my account balance every few days and make sure things are all ok. On the 1st of each month I transfer any extra money in my checking account over what is budgeted for the month to my savings account, for some forced savings.
Works well for me
March 27th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Mark up another tally for buxfer.com for me. I find that since I can text in my purchases w/ tags, that I’m actually able to keep a better log of what I spend. I pretty much force myself to log (either by text msg or online) all purchases as soon as I make them. So far, this has helped me eliminate the big pile of receipts and or the “pile which will never be processed”.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:49 am
second the use of yodlee.com.
It’s a great site that can bring all your various accounts (investment sites, banks, loans, credit cards, mortgages) together, show you and categorize transactions from all them, graph spending trends, etc. I’ve mostly used Quicken since that was what my CPA mom used, but have been slowly relying more and more on yodlee
March 27th, 2008 at 6:52 am
I recently had the same question? Where is the best place to manage your finances online. I did some research and found an article in (I think) the Feb 2008 Money magazine that talked about this. Money Center at moneycenter.yodlee.com, seem to be what everyone is looking for. It seems to be an online version of quicken, but a better interface. It tracks almost any kind of investments, accounts, real estate, insurance. Online bill paying, quick dashboard reports. Spending charts and reports, and budget charts reports. I have used it since Feb and I like it alot and makes tracking my finances a lot easier. Plus it is secure, that was one of the biggest issues that I had. I hope that this helps someone else as much as it has helped me.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:53 am
1) Excel file
2) Wachovia Online Bill Pay
3) That’s it
March 27th, 2008 at 6:54 am
I use quicken (pc) obsessively. I have my entire finacial life on there and i love fiddling with the planning tool. I would go so far as to suggest using this tool for premarital counciling as it would reveal expectations of everything from spending to kids. I was recently forced to upgrade to 2008, which I was mad about. I considered switching to ms money, but too much time and care had been invested into my plan, and money seemed more flashy than useful. 2008 is a buggy thing, and their customer care has been terrible. On the plus side they now have a envelope system spending and saving feature now that offers a deeper level of obsession (I used to have to do that on excel). The only thing I could wish for now is for a budget that can be updated so that a report showing how you are following a budget does not show the budget change as being retroactive. The savings plan makes that less necessary though.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:55 am
Currently I use the “Quicken Deluxe” program for personal finance. It works if you want a basic check register and “net worth” calculator. Quicken Deluxe, for PC, is useful because it allows one to track expenditures that are associated with retirement accounts. For example, my Roth IRA is tracked in Quicken and it tells me the current value of the fund, how much I have put into the fund, and how much I have loss. It does this through a percentage and in actual dollars. Quicken also tracks the stock market, which is convenient. I do not use this feature a lot, but it does work. I will say I am not pleased with Quicken because of the formats used in the newer version. Now that they have changed the file format I unable to have an “automatic update” from my credit union. However, it does work well with ING Direct.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:57 am
For me it is all about customization without the fluff, as well as the ability to create different models for my accounts and allocations. The only tool that really does what I need with no mess is Excel.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:57 am
I use gnucash for to keep track of my money. I had a tight budget 2 years ago and followed every cent back then, but now I only check my progress once every week or so and not all cash payments are accounted for.
Gnucash might not be the perfect for everyone as it uses double bookkeeping. It took me some time to get used to, but once I figured it out I loved it. As the name implies it started out as a free software program, and it was not available for windows until last year, but now it works well for windows also.
I love gnucash and would recommend it to everyone. I have not tried Quicken or Microsoft Money so I cannot argue about its strengths or weaknesses, but I do not want to spend money on tool to keep track of money.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:57 am
I tried Quicken about 10 years ago and didn’t like it. I rolled my own budgeting spreadsheet and have been using (and tailoring and evolving - which is a major benefit of this approach) that ever since. I’ve looked at other people’s budgeting spreadsheets (Pearbudget, et al), and have stuck with my own creation. It serves me well.
Also, I stopped using paper checks many years ago and have a second spreadsheet for my checking account register. I manually balance it online through the bank’s website every week, which isn’t a big hassle because I use cash for most transactions. I also pay 99.999% of my bills through the bank’s site.
Oh, and I also have a small envelope system (thank you Dave Ramsey) in place with 4 categories: clothes, car, pets and toys. Recently I used the latter to save up and pay cash for an Xbox 360. Also just paid cash for a new work wardrobe with plenty of cash left over for some badly-needed shoes (I tend to let things get really worn out before replacing them).
March 27th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Hey JD - Like many others here, I’ve been a long-time fan of Quicken and have used the PC version of the software for nearly 10 years. I also keep a couple manual Excel spreadsheets namely for tracking recurring bills and budgeting (as others have mentioned, Quicken budgeting is a little tedious).
I think the biggest thing I want to see out of my software is the ability to quickly and easily pull meaningful reports to observe how I’m spending my money. I’ve always been very satisfied w/ Quicken in this regard.
Finally, most difficult thing: My weakness is eating out for lunch during the workweek, and can easily rack up a couple hundred dollars a month in unnecessary eating out expenses. Ultimately that comes down to naming my eating-out budget, sticking to it, and planning ahead to bring a lunch!
March 27th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I am terrible at this. I want to get better but I want a tool that is easy to update. I’ve tried Mint, Wasabe, Yodlee and they are ok. I’d love an application or website that would let me track everything AND pay the bills. Or I’d like a solution for my phone where I can easily enter my purchases. The problem with the web applications is they don’t play nice with mobile browsers.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I second the recomendation for Yodelee. I don’t use it directly, but I’m nearly certain that it is what powers the “My Portfolio” feature on the Bank of America site. It really is a thing of beauty. Once I’ve registered all my accounts (investment, banking, credit card). I can set up rules to auto-categorize transactions that occur on any account. The transactions themselves are automatically updates, so there’s no import/export/reconciliation from various QIF files. There are a few improvements that I’d like to see, but overall it is great.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:00 am
We use MiniMoney on our Mac. We just switched from a PC to a mac, but were using Quicken on the PC. MiniMoney is a free application, is prettier than Quicken and is super simple. We’ve also just started using our bank’s bill pay program (WaMu) and it’s been working out well so far!
March 27th, 2008 at 7:01 am
I use Mint to track my spending and create budgets. I found that the budgeting tools in Mint do everything that I need to keep on track every month.
As for paying bills - almost all of them are on autopilot. I have my cable/internet and cell phone bill automatically charged to my credit card each month. At the end of the month, I only have to make my rent, credit card, and electricity payments. I transfer everything else out of my checking account into ING direct (save a little bit for ATM withdrawals the following month) once/month. All in all - I have 4 transactions that I have to worry about making per month…and then I just keep track of my spending on my credit card.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:01 am
I guess I’m the only open-source geek here. I use GnuCash and the usual online accounts/bill pay to track spending, loans and retirement accounts for my wife and myself. In addition, I’ll generally track expense categories (dining, etc) on a monthly basis in a spreadsheet.
It has import features for Money and Quicken formats (though I find I have a better idea of what’s going on with my finances if I enter it by hand, rather than importing and checking).
March 27th, 2008 at 7:02 am
We use Excel only. I’ve tried Quicken, Mint, and Wesabe. I track everything “by hand” with Excel — opening up the individual accounts and moving stuff around from cell to cell. It can be tedious, but it runs like a well oiled machine.
The top three things I want out of a personal finance tool:
1. flexibility
2. data privacy
3. flexibility
I use Excel because the other systems can be clunky, or put items in places I don’t want them. For example, I can’t automatically track lunch expenses from one restaurant for work or non-work. So some of those programs automatically associate every purchase after I ‘tag’ it once with “work food” or something similar.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:03 am
I use MS Money to keep track of individual transactions to my checking account. I tried downloading statements from my bank through Money, but I had trouble getting it to work. So I keep entering every transaction by hand. I find this is better anyway because it forces me to look at what I do instead of blindly downloading things and possibly ignoring them.
Ad for my budget, I like to play around with numbers and categories. I prefer Excel for this because I can write VBA code to make my macros do exactly what I want. It’s highly customizable.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:06 am
I’ve been using Microsoft Money for many years now. I usually pay merchants with credit cards and make sure to save the receipts from each transaction. I use these receipts to enter my expenses into Microsoft Money on a nightly basis.
Unlike many people, I don’t use the online features of MS Money. This is very important, because my nightly input to Microsoft money is also a form of review. How much money did i spend? What category? Am I spending too much?
Since I am a college student and my most common expenses are eating out. I like to keep track of this number so that I know when I am getting too close to my budget.
Online and automatic payments are a tad too automated - they don’t demand involvement and it is easy as a person to ignore them
Some features I value highly in a tool are good automatic category suggestions (e.g. If I type Caribou Coffee as the merchant - the tool should automatically choose dining out as the category (or a custom category (coffee) based on my usage patterns) Good reporting functions - this is very useful. Especially any reports that show net-worth or net-expenditures over time, comparative expenses from different months.
Of course I was able to track my accounts from the very beginning. Something I realize is not possible for many people. Under these circumstances the ability to easily import transaction info from banks or credit card companies. One very useful tool would be a pdf importer. That might be able to import and interpret pdf statements.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:07 am
More specifically, for every pay period I write out what monies are coming in and what expenses must be paid in chronological order.
Rent, Public Transit, cable and food/gas bills never change so I have a set amount come off of each cheque into an ING account to cover them and the phone bill does fluctuate by just a couple of dollars/month so I budget a slightly higher amount than I typically need and that goes into ING as well. Then my RSP contribution comes off (my personal RSP, work is already deducted at the source), then I have 2 savings accounts for car insurance (pay it in full each renewal) and emergency (which as long as I never actually need it for an emergency will one day in the not so distant future be a house downpayment). Then I set aside a personal expense budget of $20/week which I don’t track because that’s just “whatever I want to do with it” money and the rest goes to paying down my credit card debt (which should be done by mid summer allowing me to pump that much more into the emergency/downpayment fund).
I withdraw the cable and phone bills from ING manually and pay online through my regular bank. Each week my food and gas budgets are deposited automatically for use. I always try to come in under budget on food and gas and then apply the difference to my debt.
As monies come in or out I check them off my list and at the end of the pay period it all balances perfectly. Quarterly I prepare a full asset to debt report to get my actual net worth also with pen and paper although I then type it out into a chart I made in MSWord.
I don’t track my expenses per se because they are all pretty much identical each month. I pay rent, transit passes, food, gas, cable and phone and besides $20/week the rest goes into savings or debt repayment.
Every once in a while I’ll put in some overtime or receive a small bonus and that money gets put into another savings account labeled “fun” and usually goes to small trips a couple of times a year. I worked a couple of Saturdays earlier this year and got a couple of bonuses for taking courses so in 2 weeks we’re going to Cleveland to see the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This summer I’m planning to see Quebec City.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:08 am
Nobody ever mentions the single best online solution I have found (and the one that Mint uses as its “backend”) Yodlee MoneyCenter. It is by far the single EASIEST, FASTEST, LEAST UPKEEP system I have ever encountered. It is highly configurable, cross-platform (i.e., web-based) robust and feature-rich. I simply could not use anything else. It makes Mint look like a toy, and MS Money, Quicken, etc. look like Windows 98. It is that good. No social web stuff, so if you want that then Wesabe or Mint would be a better choice, but for real hard-core money management (including morgage/home value, student loans, every single type of credit or savings/brokerage etc. account is catalogued. It is extraordinary. Check it out, you will not regret it.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:10 am
I have used my credit union’s online banking for about a decade now. The Web Bill Pay is free, it updates once a day, so I can balance my checkbook daily, and I can do things like start a CD right on the website. I also download to Microsoft Money, which I’ve been using for about three years. It’s handy, it’s paperless, etc, but I’m not thrilled with it. I hope to upgrade to a Mac Laptop at some point and use Quicken, but a computer upgrade is pretty far in the future. Right now, I’m not looking to change anything, since I have enough going on with my husband’s deployment and another temporary sojourn into single-parenting.
Never liked online tools either. They seem redundant. Everything they will do, my Money will do, and I only had to buy the software and enter everything once. Plus, it’s hard to convince me to put my financial information onto a website. I know that my credit union could be hacked, but I have far more confidence there than in a website still in beta.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:12 am
We use Quicken to keep track of all transactions, but use an Excel spreadsheet for budgeting purposes (and use Quicken reports to compare actual spending to budget) because Quicken’s budget features are lacking. Like many other commenters, I am not comfortable storing my financial information online.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:13 am
I use yodlee.com to track my basic accounts (rather than checkbook ledgers).
I recently started using a spreadsheet for strict budgeting and tracking each expense by my category (yodlee has this feature, but I prefer to do my own). I use google docs for convenience.
I use networhtiq to track my overall progress. I currently don’t track my investment portfolio gains/losses, just the overall balance.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:14 am
I have been using Moneydance lately. I tried Quicken, MS Money, Wesabe, and Mint - I like moneydance the best so far. I just purchased a license and have been importing my accounts. It has a fairly simple interface but does everything I need. Also, there is an active support forum and it work across Mac / Win / Linux with the same data file.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Whew! I’m glad I’m not the only stone age person here. We used to do nothing, just review monthly checking to make sure the checks went through.
I like to keep it really simple. For day to day transactions, have 1 checking account, and 1 credit card. We deposit all cash and use debit card, checks, or credit card for all transactions.
Every month using checking account and credit card list of transactions I simply create a list of ingo (money in) and outgo transactions, with sub categories of recurring(fixed), grocery, restaurant, drug/medical, gas, and miscellaneous. That is sufficient for us to track what we are spending our money on.
Also I put the totals of the subcategories in an excel file by month so I can track changes, but usually wait till the end of the year to do that.
If I wanted to get more fancy I would like to automatically download both credit card and checking account info into a word or excel format, without losing information. I wish Amazon listed what the item was, not just “amazon”.
I would love to do automatic bill pay through checking for more of my monthly recurring expenses. I already do for a handful but the rest do not offer that option.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:17 am
I’ve been using Quicken on PC for years now. Since 2001, or so, I think. After moving to a Mac for my personal machine and finding Quicken for OS X to be rather lacking (and nearly impossible to move Quicken data to) I’ve fallen back on running the PC version in Windows under VMware. It, and some development tools, are the only things I haven’t been able to completely switch to OS X.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:17 am
I used Mvelopes for about a year as I was getting the hang of budgeting. Now I use an Excel spreadsheet and just track all income and outgo for the checking account. I have separate spreadsheets for Savings (broken into sub goal categories such as vacation, emergency fund, auto repairs, etc.), and Net Worth.
I liked the Mvelope system for the most part, especially “assigning” the transactions. It took about 2 hours to set up, not terrible, but still 2 hours. My excel sheet is customized to me, I’m good about tracking everything so it is not any hassle for me. I probably spend less than 2 hours a month keeping track.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:20 am
I use Buxfer. As of this morning.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:23 am
I use Moneytrackin.com
Has a nice look with lots of graphs and diagrams and all the features I need.
But I use it just to record transactions, not to actually pay bills with it. Nor do I download transaction automatically since it’s never supported for my bank anyway (with no online or offline program I’ve ever used).
March 27th, 2008 at 7:24 am
I’ve used Quicken (PC) for years. I like it the way it is now. I prefer NOT to have transactions downloaded automatically, as I enter them manually to check for discrepancies in anything. I have every account - checking, savings, credit cards, IRA - in there. I like being able to ‘exclude’ certain amounts from the total net worth, it helps me budget because it removes money I don’t want to spend from my total figure. I also like reports. Since I categorize everything, I can see how I’m doing both short and long-term with respect to my budget. I use automatic transactions for recurring payments, which saves me time.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:26 am
I use Quicken as well, and find it does a good job: the basics that I need to know. The pie chart is definitely a useful tool that keeps me (and my spending) in check.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:26 am
I have been forming my method for about two years; I call it cruise control. I don’t have a formal, written budget. Instead, my deduction from my monthly paycheck is set each year to the maximum allowable for a 401k. I update each year in November to whatever the IRS has raised the ceiling to.
Then it is direct deposited to my checking account. All of my bills that are non-changing amounts are set up with automatic Bill Pay. Only my water bill requires a physical check on the first of each month. All gasoline, groceries, and other incidentals like eating out go on the debit card, to be immediately deducted. I follow my checking balance each week, balancing against receipts.
Clothing and any other expenditures go on an American Express credit card(returning 4.5%) which is paid in full each mid-month date.
Two days before the next paycheck, any remaining funds above the minimum checking balance required for free billpay and my next month’s float of expenses (so as not to overdraft), I send by EFT to my Fidelity investment account.
I live below my means, so over the past two years I have saved a $10,000 cash emergency fund while accumulating $3800 in stocks in two DRIPs that automatically invest each month, and an additional $4000 in stocks in excess Emergency Fund cash I decided to invest to prevent inflation eating my lunch. (Naming it the Emergency Fund in my Fidelity nickname for the account really seemed to help me be able to leave the cash alone in it, too.)
All this while still deducting the maximum of $15,500 from my annual pay. I do still have problem areas: I have pets which is expensive, I moved into my own apartment after roommating it for quite a while, and I am making large car payments for one more year.
My best improvements - not eating out so much, price listing and shopping listing my grocery expenditures, and never, ever going out to shop for electronics or clothing. I mail order everything I really need, which prevents me from impulse shopping in the stores. It also makes me really consider - is this worth the shipping cost? Will I use it enough to justify the price?
March 27th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Pencil, paper, and patience. My financial situation is simple enough (four budget lines) that I can put a year’s worth of information on four pages of paper: 1 page for monthly asset reconciliation, 2 pages for income/budget tracking, 1 page for “notional” savings accounts dedicated to specific savings goals.
There’s definitely a diminishing return to monitoring more and more data when you factor in the possibility of burn-out.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:33 am
We have two installations of GnuCash which are used daily. After getting used to the established double entry accounting model*, I do not know what I would do without it. Thanks to GnuCash, reconciling bank and credit card statements is effortless. We also heavily use the search feature. The only negative for us is that Gnucash reports cannot be easily customized.
*double-entry does not mean you enter the same info twice, instead it means that every transaction affects two accounts
March 27th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I’m with Frugal Dad on this one.
I’m old school - nothing beats a custom Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for my purposes. I hesitant to used online financial applications because of the many security issues discussed in the comments above.
Besides, they don’t save any time. My friend uses an online financial application, but he spends more time then I do fiddling with it. Although I may not move to online financial planning, the momentum is moving in that direction and the next generation will likely fully embrace the trend.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:35 am
Like others here, I also use a combination of Microsoft Money and Excel. MS Money is used to aggregate all of my accounts and transactions electronically. I then copy the totals and summaries into an Excel spreadsheet for budgeting purposes.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:37 am
I have used Google spreadsheets recently, one tab for the budget and one for net worth. It’s not a very complicated system, but because it’s an easy way to get a sense of my financial health, I’m motivated to use it. I heard a financial “expert” suggest that you shouldn’t track your budget for more than 3 or 4 months–long enough to know where you spend your money, what your fixed and discretionary expenditures are.
I think this makes sense because it teaches you to manage your money, but you don’t spend a lot of time tracking every penny (not that it’s a bad thing, just not something I choose to spend my time doing). Investments can easily be tracked with the online brokerage you use, TD Ameritrade, Etrade, Fidelity, etc. In short, I think the system you use should teach you how to be frugal and not get in debt. For example, if you know you want to keep your weekly grocery bill under $100, you might not make that luxury purchase or maybe buy the store brand.
I looked at Mint and liked the idea, but security is a huge issue for me.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Google Docs
After testing all the online services available, I have settled on spreadsheets in Google Docs.
One sheet is the monthly budgets based off of examples I found online. The second sheet is an envelopes style method of tracking funds available in each category. The third is simply a log of expenses with totals based on categories.
I still keep my free Mint account up to date, along with the new Mint style service included in my Bank of America online account.
Mint and BOA make it easy to visualize where our money has gone, but doesn’t really help our goal to budget and be debt free.
It’s a little more work doing it ourselves, but having it all online with Google Docs makes it super convenient, especially when my wife needs to discuss finances when I’m at work or when we are travelling.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:40 am
I made a big Excel spreadsheet. Nothing else reports like I want it too or else it’s too clunky to use. 432kb right now, and requires no installation across computers. And eventually when Google Docs catches up with Excel a bit more, I’ll put it back up there.
Here are the sheets I have:
Position: I get paid twice a month, so those are my “periods”. For each of my major categories, I have budgeted, actual, difference, and expected figures. I also have my current bank balance and projected balance for the period.
Historic/Budget/Compare: Just a bunch of sheets that show how much I spent and how much I budgeted for each period, so I can make changes to my budget or spending habits.
Register: I copy and paste from my bank website to here, then add the category. This goes back to all my records (one year so far).
Debt: A big sheet with all of my debts listed (including principal, interest, min payments, and contributions). I’ve also added my income, savings, and other expenses so it’s my current projected budget. Very useful since I’m considering purchasing a new vehicle next year and possibly taking out my first mortgage! Not to mention paying off all my credit cards, other debts, and possibly even my student loans.
Wishlist: I also keep my 30-day or whatever you want to call it wishlist on here. If I can buy something with the spending cash I pull out each week, I don’t sweat it (usually under $20), but if it’s a larger purchase, this combined with a separate savings account has REALLY curbed my spending.
So it’s a little complicated, and there’s a lot of intermediate and advanced Excel functions, but it’s 100% cross platform, compatible with Open Office, and can be e-mailed about. It does everything I need and nothing more.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I use Yodlee because it accesses 99 percent of my accounts, has a calender and includes a budget feature. Oh, it’s also free.
Wesabe is more of a social program for people who need motivation to stay on track. I’ve outgrown the MySpace fad.
My biggest challenge is paying off debt. It’s not that much, but it bugs me.
http://www.shoyustuff.com/archive_31.htm#7010
March 27th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I’ve been developing a Google spreadsheet over the past two years or so. While Excel/Open Office Calc has a lot more functionality, it’s really helpful to be able to look at my expenses anytime I’m at a computer, such as at work. At first, the spreadsheet was nothing but a list of bills, and I put an ‘x’ in a cell next to the bills that had been paid. Now, it tracks my goals, my total debt left each month, my net worth, etc., and makes estimations on where they’ll be at the end of the year.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:43 am
I use excel spreadsheets to create my annual budget and track my monthly bills, retirement, savings, and net worth.
I use a feature provided by my bank to categorize expenses once they go out. I have very detailed categories - for example, for food expenses I have: breakfast out, lunch out, lunch w/SO, dinner out, dinner w/SO, groceries, happy hour, snacks, etc…
March 27th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Excel, online bill pay, and checkbook. I tried Quicken and couldn’t get the hang of it. What I like with my spread sheet is that I can see the whole month at one time — with weekly pay, some things have to be shifted around each month to be sure they are paid before the due date. Quicken doesn’t really allow this flexibility to me… that I’ve figured out. I really WANT to use it, but so far it has just irritated me. I got the missing manual, but it’s for a different edition — not the starter edition. Very frustrating.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:58 am
I use Mint- I think it’s OK, but they need to add more features before I’d want to pay for it. The main thing that I don’t like is that you can not create your own categories to track spending in them. For example, I wanted to know how much I was spending on wine, but that doesn’t fit into the categories that they already have, so I put it in “coffee shops” since I don’t go to coffee shops I know that everything that I put in the category is wine. Pretty clunky.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:06 am
We use “Budget” from http://www.snowmintcs.com. It works on both Mac and Windows. It uses the tried-and-true Envelope method. It takes some getting used to, but once you’re set up, it works great. We just past our first year using it full time. Now we never spend more than what we’ve put in our “envelopes” which has been great!
March 27th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Two years ago I tried to use quicken, I gave it a 3 month trial, but I was very dissapointed by the experience. It seemed very non-intuitive as a program, and I was slightly worried about the potential security risks.
So I went back to my old spreadsheet method. I set my budget on one tab, with expenses broken out by fixed monthly costs(mortgage, electricity, cable, etc), and then yearly irregular costs (car taxes, gift spending, travel, haircuts, etc). On another tab I would have upcoming purchases, primarily for large ticket items so we could plan what to save up for next. I would review my budget against my online statements (via online banking, and online credit card statements). We automate as many bills as possible.
I am now giving pearbudget a test trial while it’s in beta. So far I like it, the budgeting is very similar to my current spreadsheet. And I just finished yesterday transcribing our past 3 months of financial data. I’m going to try to use it as a running checklist to see how we’re doing on a day to day basis against our budget.
I think that if I can actually spend a few minutes a week on it, it will be useful and might replace the spreadsheet method… We’ll see.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:11 am
I must be old-fashioned - I use my check book register and credit card statements to manage my money. I have 3 accounts - local checking, non-local checking, non-local money market. I have the non-local stuff because it gives a great rate and I can do all transferring, etc on line. Local checking is mostly for ATM service. My fees for all 3 accounts amount to $1/month.
I do budget each month (on paper), but I don’t have a spending problem. I’ve found if I don’t go to stores I don’t spend money needlessly - makes budgeting very easy.
I just can’t put financial info online. I haven’t taken the step to get computer software either. We’re all wired differently and if you have a system that works for you why change it?
March 27th, 2008 at 8:17 am
A combination of Gnucash, spreadsheets, and recently I gave in and accepted that I will be using Mint.com
March 27th, 2008 at 8:19 am
I used to use Quicken for years on my Mac and loved it. When I got married, by PC-loving partner already used MS Money. So I gave up the control and yielded the floor to her. She keeps the accounts; I pay the bill. We check receipts, payments, etc., nearly every day, and it’s bliss.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I follow the Keep It Simple Stupid principle in most areas of my life, personal finances being no exception.
I have all my bills on autopayment, except credit cards because I don’t trust them (long story).
I have an online Vanguard account where I track all my investments. Easy, efficient, automatic investing.
I use Open Office spreadsheet on my laptop to track my budget. I only spend about 2 hours at the end of each month entering data from receipts, printed out bank statements, printed credit card statements, etc. Very easy.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:28 am
It sounds like what most of you are looking for is flexibility and customization, the very things I want, too…
Keep the comments coming!
March 27th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Pen, paper, and calculator! I have a typed out budget table and list expenditures in individual cells on my table. We’re on such a small income that I write down EVERY purchase.
We have 2 credit cards, 1 debit card, and a checkbook. I track my bank accounts and credit card accounts online. We use credit cards only for online purchases.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:31 am
I use Quicken. I add transactions and then reconcile monthly with account statements.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I’ve tried Wesabe and Mint, but decided that I’d rather not put my account information into online tools like that. Now I’m using MoneyDance and I find it just a little bit quirky, but overall, very helpful.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I’m sure you’re getting almost too many answers, so i’ll keep mine short:
I would NEVER NEVER NEVER use an online money tracker. Too much of a chance of loosing it all, for too little gain.
I’ve tried using Quicken, but i never seem to be able to keep up with it. I would love it if there was a very simple version of Quicken i could install on my computer, that would download the quicken files from my banks, and look for discrepencies for me.
I would love it if the program could initiate automatic payments for me, so i could control them all from one source, instead of from the 4 or 6 bank accounts.
I plan on keeping track of my finances once i buy an Eee PC (or knock-off) that i am getting for going back to school. I plan on keeping the recipts i use through the day, and when i get a chance during the day, to get on and update the software. (either a Linux version of Quicken itself)
March 27th, 2008 at 8:42 am
While I don’t track everything in great detail, here is what I do:
1. Balance checkbook by hand as I go, and then reconcile about once a week by viewing the account online.
2. Use Excel to come up with a general guideline of spending/saving at the beginning of each year.
3. Have retirement and college savings plans set up on auto deposit.
4. Have Excel spreadsheets for both short-term and long-term financial goals. This was important because I kept feeling as though I wasn’t making any progress in saving. By having the short-term goals [monthly by category] and long-term goals [a 20-year projection of my savings/retirement/college savings goals, and a projection of my mortgage balance], I can see if I’m on track to reach these goals and don’t get as frustrated by the slow but steady progress which doesn’t look like much in the short-term but which adds up over time.
I tried both Money and Quicken but found that using those programs was much more time consuming than just balancing the checking by hand and using a custom Excel sheet for everything else.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:45 am
I just use one big excel sheet to create my spending plan. All the expenses are put under the right time column (weekly, fortnightly, 4-weeks, quarterly and yearly) then converted to a weekly figure and automatically duplicated to the right bank account (where they’re again doubled as i do my finances fortnightly).
My income comes into one account and the spreadsheet gives the precise figures of the amounts required in the other accounts (which are then auto transfferd the next day). Anything which can be direct debited is done through one credit card which is always in the plus. The discretionary expenses (food and petrol mainly) are transfered to a debit card and are managed on the fly ie. i don’t keep precise tabs, just know how much i can generally spend).
Right now goals are to pay off old credit cards which have been locked in the cupboard (2K owing) and then continue to put that money towards savings and an emergency account. Have 7k owing on a car however i treat it as simply another auto expenses as i beleive its a good debt.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I use Quicken 2007. I was hesitant to upgrade from 2004 because of bad reviews in a few places (Amazon, CNET) but it has worked fine for me.
Our primary checking account has too many transactions to get every dollar to match, but for all other accounts, we are able to get near-the-penny accuracy. Firstrade, Fidelity, ING Direct, and Wachovia are all institutions I use and they all work well with Quicken.
I don’t use the budgeting features. I do use the reports, a lot, and export directly to TurboTax in April.
I have started lending via Prosper.com and am using a data entry technique that uses only 3 transactions per month, recommended by the Rateladder and Lazy Man and Money blogs.
The best part about Quicken is that while it has taken awhile (3 months or so, fixing an account here and updating a statement there, etc) to get most things entered correctly, once it is set up, the ability to open up one application, hit a few buttons, and know our in-the-moment net worth is very powerful. We can also look back in time and see spending patterns and impacts on Net Worth. I also use the Retirement Planner to explore What If scenarios on adjusting my 401k contribution. My goal is to get things to a point where once a week, I cover all the financial bases for all accounts in about 30 minutes.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:52 am
I use MS Money for my financial needs and have been relatively successful with it. I did try to go the paperless route earlier this year, getting most of my bills and paystub delivered electronically (via ePost, I am in Canada). I found it more work that I expected to log-in, view the bills, schedule the payments on my bank’s site and enter them into Money, so I have reverted back to paper bills that come in the mail.
For an online tool to be successful for me, it would need seamless integration with electronic billing, so that it downloads my bills and automatically schedules payments (on the due date) with the correct amounts to avoid swapping between multiple webistes to get it done.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:54 am
I use GnuCash, a free finance program for *nix systems. I don’t know if you can install it on windows or Mac. It’s great and it’s free.
For online tools, I used to use Wesabe a bit, but recently have been more interested in Mint. I like their interface, the fact that they will soon be including investments, and that you can easily see how your spending compares to other people.
Until recently my biggest financial goal was getting out of debt. I did that in Nov 07, and am now battling to keep spending down and save as much as possible.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:55 am
I use a Google doc to track my finances. I have a budget there as well as a balance sheet. I avoid more complicated online tools both because I don’t think I need them, but mostly because I do trust the security.
I run my finances with an eye towards keeping myself from overspending (Im stingy about purchases bigger than ~$50 but for some reason have no real inhibition towards spending ~$15 10 times without need). Based on my budget I have a weekly allowance for Food/necessities needed weekly and one for fun/non necessary expenses. But, knowing that I cannot trust myself to track these things I now have a system that does not require that and also means I only need to think about spending 1x per week. I have one debit card each for food and fun that receives the budgeted amount via direct deposit weekly. Meaning that so long as I stick to spending with those two cards, I never go over budget. A bigger account receives the bulk of my pay, pays my bills automatically, and moves money to investment accounts.
Because going over budget cannot happen without being noticed with this setup I merely keep track of my net worth to ensure that it is progressing appropriately, making adjustments if it isn’t. I have only student debt and paying that off quickly is my goal as the rate on this debt has eclipsed that of my high interest savings account.
As an aside, I found recently that I was going over budget on food and realized that the fix was by reducing my weekly allotment. I had enough money to eat out ~4 times a week which meant I was not keeping dinner groceries at home leading me to eat out for the 3 dinners that didn’t fit the budget. Reducing my budget leaves me with a max of one night out a week and the rest at home. I’m easily meeting this reduced budget and as a bonus, am loosing some weight from avoiding unhealthy restaurant food. Nice little double bonus.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:56 am
I’ll also recommend Yodlee’s MoneyCenter application. It’s the same application used by banks like BofA. Been using it for about 9 months now and I hardly have to spend any time tracking my spending. Nearly everything besides Paypal transactions get categorized automatically. I had tried to use Quicken for a year, but that failed in a big unusable mess.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Excel spreadsheet. I would do paper and pencil but I scramble numbers when I do math! I let Excel do the math for me. With good basic Excel skills, a person can do just about anything.
I get paid bimonthly, so I have the monthly cash flow plan set up, with two columns (one for each paycheck) and a third column adding up the left ones into the monthly figures. I have categories with recommended percentage ranges for each, and in each category section, I total actual budgeted/spent amounts and set a cell formula for actual percentage, so I can see how I’m doing. Categories: Giving, Saving, Housing, Utilities, Food, Transportation, Clothing, Medical/Health (not covered by insurance or HCRA), Personal, Recreation, and just deleted from all future monthly cash flow plans, Debts! (I became totally debt free last week.)
I don’t have separate columns for budgeted/spent as a before/after thing, I just update the cash flow plan on the fly.
My personal category tends to go over but it includes Business and Education categories which really aren’t quite personal.
Most entries are in black, but green/bold for cash envelope system monies, and purple/bold for sinking fund accumulation amounts.
I’ve not been good about tracking sinking fund accumulation, but I recently set up a spreadsheet to track these accumulations. Right now it’s just for annual/semiannual bills, while I finish the emergency fund; however, once I start more sinking funds for more savings goals, I’ll have to see how that’s going.
If I’m not tracking that well, I might put medium term savings goals into Smarty Pig (car replacement, big foreign trip, boat replacement, etc.), or switch to YNAB. http://www.youneedabudget.com
I like Excel because I can beat it into submission and make it do what I want. Simple. Quick. I hated Quicken and MS Money.
I check my accounts online and auto bill pay everything that I can, but I don’t need to download that account info into my budgeting software. I can’t really see the advantage of that compared to how I do things now.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I use Mint and a spreadsheet (Open Office, natch). The whole thing about tracking expenses is I refuse to pay for something that I can get for free.
Paying for finance software….
Thats like paying a barber to cut my hair. 1/8 inch all around please!
March 27th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Another happy Moneydance user here. I was a long time Quicken user but was irritated with the annual upgrade fees, with little or no value add. I looked for a more cost effective solutions and settled on Moneydance. I’ve been on Moneydance for 2 years now and love it.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Mint.Com Very Nice, Clean, web2.0. Love every bit of it. they are constantly making improvements to it as well.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:13 am
I keep it simple.
I converted Dave Ramsey’s budget forms to an Excel spreadsheet, removing lines we don’t need (alimony, organization dues, debt payments :-)) and simply doing sum() at the bottom for each pay period.
I track our spending with GNUCash, because it’s free software. We used MS Money, but it was more complex than we needed.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I bought quicken two years ago to try and track every financial aspect of my life but it was too labor intensive to maintain and does not work with my TSP/401K. Now all of my bills are automated and I use Quicken to simply track my cash flow to make sure that there will always be enough in my checking accounts to cover everything. It is not perfect but it is the best one I have come across to track future balances. I also use Quicken and Mint.com for spending habits categorization feature but that too requires a lot of re-categorizing in the beginning. And of course I always kept the basic excel spreadsheet of monthly bills and monthly income. I download my info manually into the software to avoid the monthly fees.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I’ve been using expensr for several months now, and I love it. I really like that it is not tied to my bank account, and I have to put every transaction in. It has significantly helped me curb my spending, b/c I know when I get home, I have to put it in.
I also use an excel sheet for major bills. I planned out the whole year on it, and it’s very helpful as I am using the snowball method to pay off my credit cards. I’m halfway there JD!
March 27th, 2008 at 9:24 am
I’m currently dealing with the same issue - trying to decide whether to move from Quicken to an online service. I reviewed Mint, Wesabe, and Yodlee on my site after giving each a test. I think Yodlee was the best of them, but I still might stick to Quicken.
http://www.soundmoneymatters.com/yodlee/
March 27th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Pen and paper. Nothing fancy. I can’t stand the computer programs. It allows me to think more about where money is going/not going while writing.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I don’t have any software and wouldn’t even consider it. I have a ledger book, and at the top of the page, I write the month, then list the expenses. I do this for each month. I have bill pay and auto pay at one online checking account, all free. When I pay a bill, I put a little checkmark in my ledger with the date I paid it. So I don’t print out anything from the online account. I do not deal with receipts whatsoever. After my bills are auto paid, and my savings account is auto paid, what’s left I take out in cash at an ATM, for groceries, entertainment, gas, fun purchases, and that’s it. Once the cash is gone, it’s gone, so I’ll slow down my impulse spending to prevent that. It’s a challenge living below my means, rather than living to see how much credit I can qualify for, but doing the former truly brings me so much peace of mind, that the sacrificing I do now, so that I’ll have money for the future is so worth it to me.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Excel spreadsheet for projections, check registers, 401k balance, CC transactions etc.
Online Bill Pay for my regular bills, except my rent which is the only check I write a month.
Everything else either comes out of my paycheck (medical insurance, etc.) or we use cash. We have an envelope for our slush money, eating out, gas, groceries etc and they all live in a little lockbox on my desk.
As for keeping paper records, I have a filing cabinet I picked up at the thrift store for $10 with a tab for everything or anyone we have dealt with.
Old fashioned in someways, but we find it works.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:37 am
My spouse and I have used Quicken for years, but with on-line bill pay and automatic transfers for investments, plus a cash budget for daily expenses, we’re finding that Quicken is overkill. We use a simple Excel spreadsheet to plan our expenditures for the month and transfer the necessary funds from savings to checking. Then, we sit back and relax. No muss, no fuss.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I use Quicken (Mac) I am sure I am not using it to it’s potential. I basically use it as a checkbook and to track spending. I use online banking and pay cash for most transactions. I agree that if I were to use an online program I would prefer a one time fee. I would also want it to track expenses, but I would need be able to customize it. I would want it to be linked into my bank accounts, money market accounts and investment accounts too. I wouldn’t want to manually transfer the information every month.
I still write out my budget on paper every month using Dave Ramsey’s budget sheets, old habits are hard to break I guess.
My biggest issue right now is investments. Since we are debt free I am focusing on building up our accounts, but it is so confusing!
March 27th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Earlier this week I registered with Moneytrackin.com but I wasn’t impressed. I like the tags but I want something with more budget type features.
I’m looking at Yodlee right now. I’m interested in the bill pay but I’m nervous about giving them my bank info.
Also, my financial challenge is paying down debt. I’m a college student though, and so paying down my car isn’t really an option right now (I owe a little over 12grand on it). I’m not looking at paying down school loans yet either…but I do have some credit card debt I’d like to tackle so I’m moving in with the parents for the summer to get rid of it once and for all. (no the easiest decision…i’m a bit older than your typical undergrad at 25)
March 27th, 2008 at 9:43 am
I use Spb Finance on my PDA/cell phone. Works fine for me.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I use You Need A Budget (YNAB). Been using it now for about two months and really like it.
It’s not near as robust (nor is intended to be) than Money or Quicken, but focused on budgeting.
I use Mint.com to track my overall finances and maintain the higher level view.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:07 am
My finances are simple, so the tool I use is as well: Just a collection of Excel sheets for check register, tracking spending, my budget, fixed-income maturity dates and amounts, 401(k) purchases and performance, emergency $, and (heh) the fluctuations in my poker bankroll. Online bill pay for everything except my power bill, car insurance/registration, and rent. I foresee no need for online management tools, because I only ever access this info at home from my own computer, and because I have no faith in providers to keep my information secure (& there’s no guarantee of redress as there would be with a breach of privacy at a bank, brokerage, 401(k) provider, etc.)
March 27th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I used to use Quicken but it only told me what I had done, not what I was planning on doing. Once I found the envelope-based system, I was hooked. Every envelope (budget category) has its own balance so it supports short and long term savings goals as well as seasonal accumulation categories like gas and electricity. I can setup my budget and I can see how I am doing against it before I spend. And amounts left over at the end of the month, stay allocated to that envelope so I don’t spend it elsewhere unless I intentionally move the money between the envelopes. Great for bi-annual auto insurance payments!
KellyB previously mentioned Mvelopes which supports envelope based budgeting in an online format. I am not keen on having all my information available at one provider and would prefer to have it stay on my PC. In addition, it is a subscription service. Not cool.
Then I found Crown Money Map Financial Software. It supports envelope based budgeting, keeps my information local to my PC and I only have to buy the software once (until the next version :-).
What strategies do you use?
* Track expenses daily - This is a huge help!
* Create balanced budget
* 10% Giving, 10% Savings, 80% Living (10/10/80 rule)
* Envelope based budgeting
* Emergency savings
What tools have you tried?
* Andrew Tobias’ Manage Your Money
* Microsoft Money
* Quicken
What are you currently using?
* Crown Money Map Financial Software
What are the top three things you want out of a personal finance tool or service?
1. Envelope based
2. Local data repository
3. Ease of use
Do you want to be able to budget?
* Absolutely
Connect to your investment account?
* Useful but not necessary
Discuss money management with other users?
* Useful but not necessary
Finally, what are your biggest personal finance challenges?
* The constant battle with advertisers feeding the “want” in me.
* Knowing how much to save for the future.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:11 am
I have no time to read all the replies so far, so I don’t know how repetitive I might be here, but . . . what would I require in an online money management program? Absolutely ironclad, guaranteed security, security, SECURITY. (Meaning I’ll probably never use such a program since the thought of my personal finance information on the Web in any form makes me cringe. There is ALWAYS a way to break through any kind of security system if you know enough.)
I manage my money on my personal computer through Quicken . . . even there I don’t like the thought of it being on something people can hack into, but I have a firewall up, and I like the ability to run various reports to see where my money is going. In the past I’ve used simple Excel spreadsheets to track debt repayments.
Top three things in a personal finance service? I’d say ease of use (in terms of both a clear, user-friendly graphic interface and time efficiency in using), the ability to run many different types of reports, and the ability to set up and customize many different accounts for different purposes (cash, bank accounts, credit card accounts, retirement plans, loan tracking, etc.) I have no interest whatsoever in the social aspect of money management—that’s what sites like GRS are for!
My biggest personal finance challenge right now is finding enough money to save. I have recently (and finally!) become debt-free, but I’m already living a fairly frugal lifestyle, to the limits of what I’m comfortable with. There just don’t seem to be any more places where I can shave off expenses, though I’m still trying.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I have tried both MS Money and Quicken and found both to be too big a pain to set up. I was integrated with the automatic syncing to bank and checking accounts but was always worried about putting all that information our there in an electronic form. I tried making an Excel worksheet tailor made to what I was looking for and really liked it. The only problem was, I use multiple computers throughout the day (work, school, home, g/f’s house). So if I kept the file on my home PC, and wanted to work on some budget stuff at work I was SOL. Or I had to make sure that I always had the latest version saved on a thumb drive. Now what I do, and love, is using Google Docs. It allows me the freedom to access my data from any computer. In addition, Google’s version of Excel is actually much easier to set up functions with. Plus I never have to worry about my computer crashing and having to start over from scratch.
People get paranoid about Google accessing their information, so I just make sure I never put account numbers, pins, ect on there.
Its exactly what I want. Simple to set up, easily accessible anywhere, and safe.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I’m using a combination of Yodlee and an Excel spreadsheet I use for reports and such. Yodlee’s great for pulling all the data from one spot.
I do my budgeting in Excel. Discussing finance? I’ll reserve that for my blog postings.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Wells Fargo “Spending Reports” section.
https://www.wellsfargo.com/wfonline/spending
Wells Fargo might not be the only bank that does this, but this is a life saver.
It is like quicken that tracks your debit card purchases then puts it in catagories automatically.
As it tallys up for the months and years, it can give you valuable information:
-gives you an averge number of money spent for past 3 months
-at tax time print out your year end summary
-keeps all your “bill statements” in one place.
-At a glance information where i can see that i’ve been eating out too much, buying too many clothes. This gives me a reminder to curb my spending for the current month and/or change my game plan for next month.
-download any month or full YEAR report excel format or nicely designed PDF format
My budget plan does not require me to hard-stick to a number i have to spend in a month but there is an average number i know i should stick by a month (including home/work/play/food/ent). I have a savings account in a money market account and keep a nice chunk in checkings account. If it need to be i “pay myself” to have that chunk always in checkings.
For those who are responsible with their money but just need data all laid out for you to see where your money is actually going and DONT want to spend time tracking it in quicken or whatever, find a bank like Wells Fargo that has Spending Report and log into it everyday!
Im not arguing the quicken/excel idea. All im saying is don’t spend time in excel if you know you wont keep track of it for every purchase.
(probably some errors in this message, dont have much time to write!)
March 27th, 2008 at 10:43 am
To: Steve
I use Quicken like an envelope system. Categoize my paycheck (+) and expense items (usually CC items) (-) out of the categories. My old Mac version worked great. The new PC version lists un categorized entries so its not as clean. I only want to track expenses in an envelope system. Savings is long term and is only tracked to see that progree is being made. Does the latest Quicken version have a envelope system that works well?
Also, I can’t grasp how the investment side works. End up using all as brokerage money market account. 401k tracking is hard for me. Any ideas out there?
Thanks for your time!!
March 27th, 2008 at 10:51 am
I don’t use any “extra” program. What do I need to keep track of that I can’t look up in my bank