When I was younger, I didn’t track my spending. I kept a checkbook register, but that was out of necessity; I constantly flirted with a zero balance, and I had to know precisely how much was left in the bank so I wouldn’t overdraw my account. (I wasn’t so good at that game, actually; I had plenty of overdraft fees.)
Ah, the good ol’ days…
When I decided to get out of debt, I had to learn to track my income and expenses. By tracking every penny I spent, I couldn’t lie to myself about how often I ate in restaurants, how much I spent on comic books, or how little I set aside for retirement. The numbers revealed my financial habits, for good or ill. (Mostly ill.) And, in time, the numbers made it easier to change these habits.
After I got out of debt, expense tracking seemed unnecessary. As long as I kept my monthly expenses below my monthly income, what was the big deal? For many people, it’s not a big deal. If they spend less than they earn, that’s all that matters. But I missed having detailed records of my income and expenses. I craved the charts and graphs. Plus, I felt a little out of control.
Back to basics
Last fall, I decided to get back to basics. To start, I set up an account at Mint, an online money management tool. The interface seemed slick, and I liked most of what I saw, but with one exception — the darn thing wouldn’t connect with my investment accounts at Fidelity. After six weeks, Mint still couldn’t connect to my investments (plus the app never really clicked with the way I worked), so I canceled my account.
Next, I gave Yodlee MoneyCenter a try. Yodlee found my Fidelity accounts right away, but this online tool still didn’t match the way I worked. It didn’t feel right.
Then it occurred to me: Don’t I already have a piece of personal-finance software I know how to use? A piece of software that already has most of my account information? One in which I’ve already defined my custom categories (comic books, “laundry agreement”, “faux mortgage”, and so on)? One that contains several years of my financial data?
Of course I do.
This week, I re-visited my old Quicken install. The program is ancient in computer terms: It’s Quicken 2007 for Mac, and many of the features (like downloading stock quotes) no longer work, which is one of the reasons I gave up on it in the first place.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Quicken was perfect for my needs. I don’t want all of the automated features. The whole reason I want to track my spending is to raise my financial awareness. Entering things by hand — which is how I’ve done it for the past five years — forces me to notice every transaction.
So, I spent most of Thursday afternoon setting up Quicken. It may seem crazy, but I had a blast reconfiguring my investment accounts, entering transactions from my receipts, and looking at charts and graphs. I forgot how much tracking my expenses makes me feel like an active participant in my own financial life instead of a passive observer.
It was actually fun to enter my expenses into Quicken.
I took a break at one point yesterday to chat by phone with MP Dunleavey, who writes about family finances for Money magazine and DailyWorth. I mentioned that I’d just finished setting up my investment accounts in Quicken.
“I tried Quicken once,” Dunleavey said. “I didn’t like it. Now I use Mint, and I think it’s great. It gives me just the amount of information I need.”
Our brief conversation highlights an important aspect of expense tracking. Namely, there’s no one right way to do this. If you choose to track your spending, the most important thing is to get it done. For my wife, that means using an Excel spreadsheet. For Dunleavey, that means using Mint. For me, that means using an outdated version of Quicken. For you, that may mean a spiral notebook with different colored ink for each spending category. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you do what works for you.
Small change
Tracking my expenses is just one piece of the puzzle. I intend to make a handful of other small changes during the year ahead.
- As mentioned in November, I’ll eventually create a a spending plan — a sort of loose budget for my money. I want to track my spending for a few months first, though.
- I’ve already re-instituted my $200/month adult allowance. This is cash I can spend on anything I want without worrying whether it’s sensible or not.
- Plus, I’ve begun to reduce my credit card usage. I’ve written before about the “pain of paying” with cash, and I’ve found recently that it’s really true for me. When I use credit — even though I pay the balance in full every month — I don’t really feel it. But when I use my allowance money? There’s an almost visceral pain as I part with my hard-earned dollars. So, I’m going to change how I use my credit card: travel and regular bills only for now.
I’ll probably make other small changes during 2011 (like using targeted savings accounts more often), but this is plenty to start with.
My financial situation is comfortable now, and I want to keep it that way. To that end, I’m trying to balance the rewards of frugality and thrift with the habits that put me here. I think there’s room for both. In fact, I think the habits will help multiply the rewards.
I’m curious: Those of you who have no debt and plenty in savings, have you abandoned some of your old habits? Which ones? Or, if you abandoned habits, have you ever gone back to pick them up again? And if you’re still working through the first two stages of personal finance, which habits do you think you’ll keep later? Which do you think you’ll abandon?
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I have some loose budget that lets me know when I’m going a little wild with eating out and stuff, but nothing hard. I use mint and I feel more engaged with my finances, because I review all the transactions each weekday morning, its part of my routine. I look at the list and say “yup, I went to subway and bought groceries yesterday”. But then, almost everything I do is with a card, and I’m just a single guy.
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I have the same concerns as KM, with one place having all access to my account, one hack into Mint and I would be in trouble.
At least if one of my accounts get compromised, it is just that one, not all.
It seems that you read once a day where some ‘secure’ company/website has been breeched.
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I’ve been tracking my finances for 10 years with Quicken 2000 Deluxe and I’m almost afraid to upgrade because it’s been working so well for me. I’ve fine-tuned it over the years, including refined categories, planning, budget, inventory, taxes, etc. One of my clients has Quicken 2006 for the Mac and it’s giving us so much trouble that I print checks and reports on my old Quicken for her, one more reason why I don’t want to upgrade. I love the way the budget part of it warns me when I’m overspending in any category (gift giving and dining out is where I usually overspend). This is an old habit that I’m very happy to keep. I never pay cash for anything, I have two credit cards that give me back a certain percentage and that I pay in full every month. I just download the activity from my bank accounts and credit cards into Quicken, assign categories to each expense, and I’m done! I pay all my regular bills online, and the vendors or Quicken remind me when they’re due, no sweat, no checks to write, no stamps. The new thing I might try this year is giving myself a cash allowance for discretionary spending because I do way too little of that (too frugal for my own good I guess).
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I’m curious if anyone has used or tried the xpenser app (xpenser.com). I’m debt free with good savings but will be buying a house this year and want to track expenses. Since I’m always looking at the Blackberry or on the computer it seems like a good way to go. I’ve not tracked my expenses for about three years since I’ve been debt free.
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Shalom, I am the same way with weight loss! My body likes to be a certain weight, which is a perfectly healthy weight, and to get down lower just goes against nature and is too much work and deprivation!
I use excel. I have tried some of the other programs and find them fiddly for one reason or another. Tracking is a useful tool for our family, I just wish my husband would take ownership of it as he is the spender, and I am more the saver.
I always accused him of overspending on lunch, because he refused to brown bag. Well, by tracking, I realized he gets a free lunch at least three times a week and that lunch is not a budget buster for him. For me, I was eating an organic frozen pizza pocket every day at $3.50 each when I could have been eating leftovers. So tracking sometimes comes out in favor of the spender!
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RE: Deborah
“In my head, once that money is out of an account or online tracking, it’s no longer available. And so whatever cash I might have in my purse always seems like play money.”
I used to feel like that, too. It is because you typically pay with cards. If you switched your spending to cash-only, it wouldn’t take long before it stopped feeling like play money.
Back when we used cards for everything, I always used to say that cash felt like play money, and it ended up in the vending machine. But, we decided to give cash a try anyway and it drastically changed how and when we spent money. We weren’t doing bad before, we paid everything off every month, but there really is a different feeling when you restrict yourself to paying only in cash.
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@56 Des
Actually, when I was in college (and did not have a lot of money, although I was on a pre-paid meal plan so even if broke I wouldn’t starve), I went from cash-only to debit card. I was surprised, but my spending dropped dramatically because the cash was always burning a hole in my pocket. The debit card felt more painful to use for expenditures, for exactly the same reasons Deborah mentioned. The cash felt like it had already been “spent” and I didn’t have to keep track mentally or with receipts but stuff in the checking account was still being budgeted. So I would only use it for intentional spending.
These days I don’t have to keep track of what I spend on the credit card because there’s no chance of me going over, but if I had to still budget, I would definitely spend less on credit than on cash. Things might have been different if the ATM had been more difficult to get to as well, though that probably would have just resulted in me taking out more cash each trip and spending it just as fast.
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I used to use Quicken 2002 for Mac and when I upgraded the computer in 2009 had nothing but problems transfering records. So I bought iBank for about a third of the Quicken upgrade and i’m pretty pleased with it. It doesn’t connect with every bank we use (yet), and I suspect it’s because we’re mac users in a PC world. But it syncs well with my iPhone which is how I’m tracking cash transactions. It’s fun to use and so I’ll do it. My biggest problem is finding time to track expenses and income regularly and consistently and the app on my phone makes it easy and fun.
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I use Quicken, but just to replace my old pen and paper system. I don’t really use any of the features except some charts and graphs.
I use pencil and paper for my daily out of pocket expenses. I have a $ amt that we can spend every two weeks. If we spend this much or less, we are living on one income. If we spend more, we are dipping into the second income. Second income is automatically put into savings.
I use an Excel spreadsheet to track paying off debt (2 car loans and a home improvement loan).
This may seem way too complicated, but it works for me. Now I always know exactly where I stand. I have been using this system since October when I started reading all of comments on the posts here. It made me realize that I didn’t really have a handle on my finances but that I could put together a system that worked for me. So thanks!!
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I carry very little cash. I have gotten sufficiently “cheap” that I will only allow myself one latte a week (unless it’s a really, really bad week) and I don’t eat out more than once a week, so a $20 is more than enough for a week. I get my cash at point of purchase much more often than going to an ATM, and since I always use my debit card, these transactions are always written in my checking register. I also squirrel away any of those new pink $10 bills that I get in change, for my mad money.
Back when I was an office manager, I learned to use Quickbooks, and when I started doing our household taxes I got QB for the home office. It’s great for categorizing expenses and keeping a big picture. And it’s also great to be able to fun a fast report that totals up all the Schedule C expenses for my self-employed DH. If we itemized deductions on Schedule A I’d use it for that, too. The only investment information I put in QB is the amount I contribute.
I don’t track spending daily. I pay my bills, have a $50 per pay period “allowance,” and then I basically don’t spend anything till the end of the pay period.
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I started using MS Money in 2005 and keep my spending categories to about 10 to make it easier to track and enter items. MS stopped supporting Money and I switched over to Quicken Premier last week. Love it more than Money. The reporting is better and since I have all my savings in one account, it allows me to make spending goals and then “move” the money into those goals from my savings account. I’ve had no debt for years and a one-year emergency fund and other savings goals accomplished and moving on to the house down payment fund. I also put approximately 35% toward retirement and regular savings each month. I too allow $200 in a miscellaneous fund to be spent on whatever. Will always track my money as it makes me feel more secure.
Costco has a coupon valid for the next couple of weeks for $20 off Quicken.
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For the last ten years, I tracked every penny by hard entering receipts into Quicken. Like J.D., this kept my spending very present mind and allowed me to focus on things like paying off my student loan debt, which I did last year.
With a comfortable savings cushion and no debt, I’ve since switched to spending one hour per month syncing my Quicken accounts and balancing everything. I still manually clear each entry and keep track of spending in that fashion, which works for me.
I had syncing issues with Mint.com as well and plan on sticking with Quicken for now, though a cloud-based option would fit my needs perfectly. If I could sync all past transactions from Quicken to Mint AND have access to all my investment and other accounts, I’d make the move today.
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I’m on the same page as you J.D. I created an account at Mint, only to realize it didn’t do anything I really wanted. Yeah sure, I loved seeing all my balances in one place. But it didn’t really save me time because I check all my accounts individually anyway. I liked Quicken because I entered my transactions manually.
Unfortunately, Quicken doesn’t work for me anymore, and not by fault of the software. I just hardly get on the computer at home, and I would let my expenses pile up before entering them. This has led me to try and find other ways to track my spending.
I think it’s important to manually track your spending and be proactive about it, instead of reactive dependent upon what you see as your balance on Mint, etc.
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I used to use Microsoft Money to track every penny, but eventually it fell by the wayside. I was never in serious debt (just a small amount of student loans which I paid off within a year after graduating) so nothing about my financial situation really changed that caused this… Nowadays I have a spreadsheet with our savings and investment accounts listed, and update it manually once a quarter just to keep track of our net worth. Due to our savings being automated, it keeps going up (stock market gyrations notwithstanding) so I don’t worry about it. Sometimes I do want to know, e.g. how much we spent on a vacation, or on groceries, or whatever, and don’t have the information available; but so be it.
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Wow – and here I thought I was the only one using an ancient copy of Quicken. I got it years ago for free with my Turbo Tax purchase and have used it since. I don’t update my investments as I have them all at one location. I only use it to track checking / savings / cash spending and income. It works well for me…but a lot of times I feel like a dinosaur for not updating to a more recent version.
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I too use Quicken, have done so for over 15 years now. I tend to upgrade every other year to every third year depending on new features.
Everything about ALL my finances goes into Quicken. I don’t manually enter my receipts. I download everything BUT I make sure to manually categorize every transaction. I don’t just accept Quicken’s category assignments.
It’s a pain to enter the receipts manually and I feel I get the same level of control by manually categorizing them. I generally do a download one or twice a week, categorize everything. About once a week I review the reports to verify I’m on track with everything.
Just started using Gainskeeper in conjunction with Quicken to keep track of all my investment gains. I found Quicken did not do a good job of tracking capital gains for stocks AND options. Quicken is good for capital gains on stocks but not so good for the tax consequences of options and stocks combined.
I couldn’t imagine not using Quicken. I love knowing where every dime goes and knowing at a glance what my total net worth is. Of course that means all my assets (cars, rental props, etc.) are in there too – super easy to set up.
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I have been using old Quicken on an internet free computer. I am able to split my expense categories within a transaction and track the specific categories. It has helped me better ID my problem areas and track my progress in those areas.
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After 5 years of expense tracking, I’ve got my ridiculous spending habits mostly controlled. I use Quicken as well, and I don’t have a problem tracking my debit/credit purchases and making them stick within my budget. I have found, however, that any cash I have gets spent frivolously (except for gas)–and that I never track it.
I decided rather than beating myself up about it I would just build that into my plan. I get a fairly modest amount of tips from my job every 2 weeks, and that monsy can be spent HOWEVER I WANT. No questions asked, no guilt. Since I started that, I actually found myself less stressed about the cash–and spending it less often. I make sure that if my gas tank is at less than half, there’s $30 cash in my wallet until I need gas.
My budget got pretty simple after 5 years of tracking and being REALLY REALLY bored with it. I had everything broken up into smaller and smaller categories, and some of them were non-monthly expenses. It got very frustrating to see Quicken telling me that my expenses for the electric bill were 200% more than my budget–when really the bill was about 30% less than I’d saved for it. I opted for auto-saving the budgeted monthly amount into an ING account, and removing the utility expense from the Insight report.
Now I have all my bills and debt reduction automated, and my spending money is broken into two categories: Groceries and “spending money”. I will spend my spending money on groceries if I get caught short, but I will NOT spend my grocery money on a latte or taco stand, let alone that nice sweater that’s on sale. It doesn’t matter if I have a haircut this month, or if I spend my entire allowance on clothes one month out of 6. And Quicken has stopped nagging me about things it doesn’t understand are just fine.
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For the past 10 months or so, I’ve been using the PearBudget spreadsheet to track expenses and get a better handle on my budget. I have found it really helpful and would recommend it, particularly since it’s free!
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Even though I have no debt (luckily I never got into debt) I still track my spending using MoneyWell on my Mac. I wouldn’t know how to spend less than I earn without keeping track of my spending in some way.
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I don’t explicitly track my spending, but other people’s differences in software preferences are interesting. When I do need software for doing financial tasks, I often just create it myself. I wrote myself a mortgage amortization calculator in perl, for instance. I feel like I have more control over exactly what I want if I create my own software.
Obviously, most people would have no interest in this, but it works for me. It’s also why I try not to recommend computing practices to other people, I’m a software engineer and the way I use my computer is far from typical. I mean, I use vi as my text editor and grep is quite possibly my favorite utility. I don’t expect other people to really want to try this sort of setup.
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I’ve used Quicken for years and love it. I never have to enter receipts because everything downloads automatically and is usually already categorized for me (I use credit rather than cash). I now have years of data to compare and I like the charts and graphs Quicken makes.
To your question, JD, I do not have consumer debt and never have. We paid off the student loans and the cars, and all we have left is $50k of mortgage debt, which we intend to pay off in the next two years. We use the “pay yourself first” method and whatever is left is what we can spend. I download our financial data a couple of times a week just to keep an eye on our spending. If we want to save up for something special like a vacation, we know where we can cut (eating out is our usual culprit).
So, yes, we keep to our good financial habits, mostly because they’re so ingrained it never occurs to us not to.
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@67 Tyler K– Does that mean you finally bought a house?
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I’m probably a stage 2, out of debt and working on the savings. I use a variety of tools, which may or may not be overkill, but it gives me different views, and I like the scenery.
I still enter everything into Quicken myself. I too like the hands on engagement of entering every transaction. I also use Mint. I like the broader categories there. Sure, I could restructure my Quicken categories, but for now I’m content with the way things are. I also use spreadsheets for a few “big picture” things, and some details regarding specific categories, i.e., divorce settlement money that is intended to provide my daughters with such things as prom dresses and school books.
My boyfriend thinks all this is a mess, and maybe he’s right, but I’m comfortable with my many windows on my finances.
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http://moneydance.com/
MoneyDance is very similar to Quicken in terms of layout, but
a) free trials are available
b) their iphone app is simple and easy to use (must sync w/ desktop, though)
c) it’s an open source linux piece, which means that it’s constantly being upgraded and improved by people who care
d) you don’t have to pay every year or risk software disabling.
It’s a win win win… check it out.
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@Nicole:
Not quite yet. I moved into a different rental, but the owner wants to sell it, and has given me first priority on buying it. I’m planning on trying to buy it this spring. So far I’m just trying to get everything organized.
The new house is quite a departure from the old place. http://tylerkaraszewski.com/house_pics/ I may have to write something about the transition at some point.
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Hi JD–
I tried Mint, and at first, I liked it, but I also had many problems getting certain accounts to update. After spending several hours going through a month’s worth of expenses so I could track them, I realized some of my line item expenses from my checking account were not showing up on Mint. It was really, really frustrating. I’m going Contemporary-Old School, as I call it. Not paper and pen, but Hubs and I input every single dollar we spend into an excel sheet so we can look at what we are spending on.
Great post. And obviously Mr. Money Maker did not read your post very carefully. Not sure how he got from you explaining you need to stick with a budgeting system that works for you to “I’m back to drowning in debt.”
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@72 Tyler K… Yeah, wow, that looks quite a bit bigger. Are you ok with switching out the beach for woods? What made the change? Inquiring minds want to know. I guess I’ll find out in a few months when you do your next reader story, eh?
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I started budgeting again in some categories that seemed to be out of control–like groceries, dining, household, gifts, charity (yup, that’s right) and especially travel. I’ve put a dollar figure on what I want to spend and track that with an Excel spreadsheet, although I use Quicken regularly. But with Quicken, I was just looking at what happened after the month was over. I’m sure I could devise something in Quicken, but I think the spreadsheet will work for me. And like #46 Deborah, I have issues with cash (although I give myself $20 per week to spend however) feeling more like free money. I hate seeing my credit card balance go up, though.
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I use clearcheckbook .com, with them I can enter transactions anywhere: home, work, my mom’s house. I don’t use the tools for budgeting or tracking. But it lets you put in recurring transactions. That’s always where I got stuck, how much is my cell phone? This way I don’t have to remember. It also lets me see what is leftover after my paycheck is deposited and bills are paid so I can tell if I’m on track. I’m also in the cash flies from my pocket group. I usually spend MORE if I have a large amount of cash in hand then if not since I consider it already out of my account and I don’t need to track it.
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@Nicole:
Yeah, the new house in the woods is farther from the beach, but only about six miles. This actually was a pretty big concern for me before moving, but the drive hasn’t been a big problem so far. The main things that prompted the move were a disagreement we had with our previous landlord which got us thinking about moving in the first place, and the incredible deal we got offered to rent this place (we’re paying 10% more than we were in the old place).
I actually have considered how I might turn the move into an interesting reader story, but haven’t come up with anything real fantastic to say so far that doesn’t just sound like “I spent more money on a bigger, fancier house”.
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@81 TK
It would make for great comment discussion though… people would be totally divided about whether it was a good idea or not. There would probably also be some California bashing. Plus you could go into more detail about the original tiny home and its benefits, what it has allowed you to do, whether you have any regrets. It would be a nice compare/contrast thing. Pros, cons, and what has changed. You could also talk about utility bills, unexpected expenses, and so on. Things you miss vs. things you like. Which fancy improvements were worth it, which weren’t. Anything you’ve learned…
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I like the adult allowance idea. I have issues with the guilt when I want to spend on something I enjoy, but do not necessarily need and that would solve that without breaking the budget.
As for tracking expenses, writing down everything I spend in a small notebook that can be accessed anytime and anywhere works best for me. My husband and I like to get the mini-registers our bank gives out, (the ones with the pocket in them for your debit card,) to track vacation expenses. We dedicate one mini-register to each trip and include all expenses, hotel, air, food, souvenirs, vending machine at the hotel, etc. That way when we plan our next vacation, we can look back on past vacations to more accurately guage how much we will likely spend. The added bonus is my husband has come to think of it as a fun game!
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If this is personal, don’t answer, but I have to know what “laundry agreement” is…it seems to be tagged to a gas station?
Another nice thing about Quicken is the reporting. I just “closed” our 2010 year and it was fun to compare it to 2009 spending and see how much we’ve upped our net worth.
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We use Quicken and I love how at any moment I can open it and see where we are at financially. We log every penny; I guess we have gotten good at writing down what we spend even if we don’t get a receipt.
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We still have a house payment, so aren’t completely out of debt yet (although we’re working on it.) But I have definitely continued to track every penny I spend, using a spreadsheet. I also use Quicken, but pretty much as a computerized register. I don’t look at things by category in there much unless it’s quarterly tax time.
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I’ve gotta say I’m a really frugal and minimalist guy. I buy the basic necessities and stuff for the kids. What I do plan to do differently this year, is help people who have trouble financially and spread my wisdom in that regard.
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@Nicole:
You actually bring up some good ideas I hadn’t thought about. I’m copying your comment and saving it for a reference for later.
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@88 TK
Yes, I “actually” frequently have good ideas. Surprising, I know. But that’s why they pay me the big bucks.
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#84 Kevin M
I have to know what “laundry agreement” is…it seems to be tagged to a gas station?
I’m wondering too! I searched the comments AND searched the site and was shocked that I was the only one interested in finding out what this is. Then I saw Kevin M. What is it, JD?
I use an Excel spreadsheet, but as an unmarried college girl who makes $3000 a year and gets expenses covered by parents, there’s not really much in there. My only categories: Roth IRA, Charity, Food, Clothes Etc. But I do enter every credit/debit purchase with varying levels of detail.
I also have the same cash problem many mentioned above. When I see it in my wallet it feels like free money, and although I try to remember to record it, I almost never do. So credit/debit is the way for me.
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@Nicole:
I did not mean to imply surprise by use of the word “actually”, please pretend it wasn’t included in that comment.
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For the first time, my New Year’s resolution is to track my spending. Like you mentioned when you were younger, you paid overdraft fees… I have been guilty of this too. I am tracking my journey towards frugality on my blog and I have decided to use Excell. I thought about mint.com, but was uncomfortable with a third party having all my information (even though I’ve heard good things about mint). And I wanted to force myself to write (or type in) evey transaction individually. Excell seemed the most obvious to me since I used it in school. I love my spreadsheet and I am already feeling more in control.
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@91 TK
Done.
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I use a basic Excel spreadsheet for my budget. I think that as long as you find a system that works for you and that you keep up with instead of ignoring, then it doesn’t matter if you use Excel, Quicken, Mint, YNAB or something else. I, too, like knowing where every cent goes to make sure my spending stays in check and that I’m making progress towards my goals.
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I think I’ll keep the allowance portion because I know as soon as I let loose I’ll probably be in the same boat.
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This is my big thing this year, because in December I spent much more than I was comfortable with without even realising.
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free Quickbooks for small business online. You have to REALLY know qb to use for pers tho!
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Ah! Mint. It never connected to my fidelity accounts either. So frrustrating that I finally gave up on it. Just like your wife, I like my excel spreadsheet. We just never felt like tracking expenses as we have savings and are not in debt. But I had a huge shocker when I started tracking this month. From January 1st to today we ate out for $140. (And I thought we ate out for $200 a month. hahaha) FOR.ONE.WEEK. That is freaking ridiculous. I am glad I am tracking now. Really helped me get off my behind and start cooking.
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I use the Expense Tracker app for iPhone, and I love it. You can customize your own expense and income categories, set up recurring expenses, and designate what bank account your spending comes from (or that it’s cash). It’s also easy to view lists and graphs of your spending history for any time period of interest. The best part about it is I always have my phone with me, so I can just enter the transaction right when it happens.
I was inspired to start tracking my spending (and generally getting a handle on my finances) because of this blog, so thank you J.D. for providing this wonderful resource!
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Hey JD, I have been using Quicken since I was 19 years old (1999) and every single electronic transaction I have ever done is entered there. (over 10 years of history now)
I still use Quicken 2007 on Mac and it does perform stock quote updates and even pulls automatic statements from most of my accounts.
While I probably don’t _need_ to track my spending, the insights Quick gives me is wonderful.. My wife and I go through our spending at least a couple of times a year and find places to cut back.
I consider Quicken to be one of the main reasons why I have gone from a net worth of $0 to nearly $500k in 10 years… I can’t wait to see what the next 10 years brings (now I just hope Intuit comes out with an actual upgrade to Q2007, I’m not holding my breath though)
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