Personal Finance Software...Which Do You Recommend?

[fused]

Hi folks! I'm looking to purchase personal finance software capable of doing the following:

Manage all banking accounts

Pay bills

Categorizes transactions to help identify where my dinero is going

Monitors cash flow with reports, graphics

Create budgets

Manage my investments

Manage my loans

Manage my CCs

Managing and minimizing taxes would be nice too

I have looked into quicken premier and microsoft money. I seem to like the later. I would like to read some of your thoughts and experinces with personal finance software.

Message Edited by fused111 on 09-19-2007 01:38 PM

[wrw0010]

If you have any accounting or business background, you will be happier with Quickbooks. Money targets someone with less knowledge of proper bookkeeping and is therefore less robust.

[Tuscani]

Quickbooks

[Anonymous]

See I knew someone would cme along with a better option than Money.  Its my personal fave but my books are small.

[Anonymous]

I love "MY BUDGET PLANNER"

I used quicken, excell, quickbooks--it's either too much (program), too expensive, or too time consuming.

I highly recommend this:
http://www.mybudgetplanner.com/

It's a very simple interface that makes it very easy to enter in credit cards, bank accounts, set a budget, enter in values for your budget, then you can enter in daily values for everything else you spend (like $3 cup of coffe, or $12 sushi take out) and track your spending on a daily basis. It's a great way to micromanage your spending habbits and allows you to immediately find holes in your spending patterns--see what you could be spending too much on, or too little.

I highly recommend it.

[fused]

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wrw0010 wrote:

If you have any accounting or business background, you will be happier with Quickbooks. Money targets someone with less knowledge of proper bookkeeping and is therefore less robust.

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No real accounting experience except for the two semester weed-out classes I took in the late 80's or early 90's. History is my background. I guess I want something easy to use and that can track my spending to the penny. I want to know where I'm wasting money...it's not just the beer.

[Anonymous]

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fused111 wrote:

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wrw0010 wrote:

If you have any accounting or business background, you will be happier with Quickbooks. Money targets someone with less knowledge of proper bookkeeping and is therefore less robust.

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No real accounting experience except for the two semester weed-out classes I took in the late 80's or early 90's. History is my background. I guess I want something easy to use and that can track my spending to the penny. I want to know where I'm wasting money...it's not just the beer.

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In tht case fused I would highly reccommend Money Deluxe.  I am the worst person about keeping up with what I soend money on which is one reason why I use my credit and debit card for abso-freaking-lootely EVERYTHING.  I can start up my software, download all of my accounts and reconcile in a matter of minutes.  You get to assigne categories to your spending and also track categories you want to wactch closely right on the home page.  For me its groceries and fast food (what else with a teenaged boy in the house).  managed to reduce my spending on groceries from almost 600.00/mo to just over three.

I am also horrible about writing transactions down when I use my debit card.  The ability to download daily really helps in that respect.  I'd never spend more than 200.00 before the transactions hit my account so it keeps my account in the black and lets me know when I may need to transfer funds.  Get a reminder whenever bills are due.  Also gives me and advisor alert when an interest rate is about to change.  Say from 0% to regular at least a month ahead.

I love Money.  Just don't get too dependant on it...lol!! When I bought my new comp and had to put it in the shop for the month, forgot to pay the power bill...lol!! (Dont get paper bills at all).

[fused]

I'll check that out Brammy! I was just playing with Quicken Premier and I like it.

[Anonymous]

MS Money-

It works with Vista

Biggest reason I use money is the auto download of CC, bank and investment accounts. I can use money to use my banks online bill pay.

All but 2 of my account auto download to money.

I use the budgeting and cash flow. Track EVERY transaction
I have not missed a payment been late sense I started using it.

[John060675]

I manage a retail store that sells Quickbooks, Quicken, and Money.  My personal thoughts:

Quickbooks - Very powerful program.  Not really necessary unless you have a business.

Quicken - By far our top seller.  Downloads directly into TurboTax if you use this software to prepare taxes.  Also, their investment tracker seems to be a little better than Money's. 

Microsoft Money - Considered a little more user friendly from the feedback I receive.  Direct downloads into Taxcut and TurboTax software.

Magazines always rate Money and Quicken at the top.  Truthfully, you cannot go wrong with either.