I have tried using Quicken a few times. It's easy enough to use and does more than I could ever hope to want to use it for -- and I don't use it, because my laptop is nowhere near me most times that I'm paying for something.

Instead, I've opted for a program on my Palm PDA -- which is near me almost every single time I pay for something, so I can enter the info right away and be done with it. I use a program called BudgetMaster; there are several other good ones out there (Adarian Money, SplashMoney, even PocketQuicken).

Frankly, if you're working well in Excel, I'd be hesitant to get on the Quicken upgrade bandwagon. Exactly what are you looking for out of such a tool? Is it possible there are freeware or shareware templates for Excel which would serve the same purpose(s)?

My computer is conveniently located and I update my spreadsheet weekly if not more often. I currently have my spreadsheet with our total income at the bottom and then I have our specific categories (Daycare, mortgage, car payment, clothing-Dad, clothing-mom, school expenses, etc.) listed with the budgeted amount. In one column I just keep entering the amount and it automatically deducts it from the budgeted amount so I always know how much I have left in that category. It also deducts if from our total income automatically. I thought it would be easier to read if there were actual graphs to see where we are over, etc. Right now, my spreadsheet is helping me see where we need to make adjustments because we just list one month after another. But it's not helping me keep track of where we are for the month. I would like it to always reflect monthly payments we have later in the month even though they haven't been paid and entered into the spreadsheet. I noticed a payment calendar on Quicken and wondered if it did something like this. Maybe I just need to do some more tweaking. One of my biggest reasons to have my budget up to date is so that I can easily show my DH on any day where we are. (And of course keep us from overspending.) I'll check out the programs you suggested as well.

Hi rushmom3,

One of our crew may happen to have a tendency to overspend at times, maybe?

Sorry - can't offer advice regarding your question, as I don't use either.

Old dinosaur, I guess ... you've heard of (paper)?

Have a great (pre-Christmas) week.

ole joyful

Quicken here. Used it religiously for years, and it helps me have an absolutely crystal read on our finances. And the data stays right there - I can retrieve anything easily.

I like not only tracking spending against a budget, but also balancing all account statements, tracking investment portfolios and performance, and being able to project future scenarios with the Planning tools. You can figure the impact of refinancing your mortgage, or making a major expenditure (like college tuition). It is multi-faceted and pretty much has a tool to tackle any aspect of your financial picture, now or in the future.

It is only as good as the thoroughness of what you load in. Probably helps to be a little obsessive... But once you have it up and running (which takes some care and effort), you are a couple of clicks away from knowing the impact of anything, e.g. high inflation, early retirement, a new car, etc. etc.

'Scared me straight' into frugality!!

We used Quicken since version 2. We really liked the functionality and the intuitive design of the system. But we are no longer using that program.

A couple of years ago they wanted an annual fee to keep us linked with our bank account. So we switched to msMoney which doesn't charge such fees. We like it as well as Quicken.

We use it to track bank accounts, stock market purchases and other investments. It also makes transferring money between accounts very simple.

We also use MsMoney reports to transfer information to our very complicated farm management spreadsheet. It means that financial data only has to be entered one time, so there is much less room for error. (Errors are also reduced by downloading transactions from the bank.)

One time of entering the data allows it to be used in many ways:
Tracking the actual transaction
Balancing the checkbook
Making sure that there is no unexpected activity on bank accounts
Budgetting and tracking spending by category
Looking up old records to find out when a specific purchase was made. (e.g. is that appliance still under warrantee?)
Tracking net worth.

There are a lot of fancy graphs and such, but most of these we don't use. However, they are useful to see at a quick glance whether some aspect of your budget or some category of asset is seriously out of proportion.

rushmom, I have to think it would not be very difficult to create a graph showing actual vs. budget or a projected month-end budget. Without knowing how the current worksheet is set up, it would be hard for me to help. But you might try the Excel Chart Wizard to point you to the data necessary to create the graph you want.

I've linked below to a part of the Microsoft Web site that includes templates and such you can download for free. The one linked to specifically is a Budget Summary Report. Here's another one that might be better suited and which specifically mentions a chart. (n.b., I have not used any of these personally)

Here is a link that might be useful: Microsoft Office support, on-line

We have used Quicken since the days of DOS... and love it!

Ditto what celticmoon says it does.

And I AM weird about entering in all the info. The more you put in, the more you get out!

I've used Quicken since 1991. It was relatively simple then and now has all kinds of bells and whistles I don't use. Like Celtic says - you do know exactly where all your money goes and it's so easy to find out anything you want to know about what you have spent in the past. It's been extremely helpful during a couple of periods of unemployment - could quickly figure out elective spending, where we could cut back, etc. I couldn't function without it though - love being able to download all my bank transactions. It's so much more efficient than the old manual processes.

Good info. So, if I were going to purchase a program like Quicken, I should check with my bank first to see if they charge a fee for any of these programs?

I am actually getting obsessive about my data. Here are some of the things I want to try to get a better handle on:

1. I have as many payments that I can come automatically out of our checking account. I have these items on my calendar and a reminder pops up so I enter it into my checkbook (and spreadsheet). All other bills I pay via ebill at the beginning of the month. I don't like posting these payments before they are hitting my account, but I would like to be able to know where I'm at at any point in the month while taking those payments into consideration.

We have some big payments that come out on the 23, 24, and 27th of the month (I can't move them up) and I'm always looking at my balance and trying to remember everything that I need to subtract to find out what we have left. Right now, I just keep a basic checklist on another sheet in my spreadsheet with a checkmark by the payments that have been made.

2. Come January, we will be paid once a month, so I've really got to be on top of it all.

Any suggestions?

Depending on how much more you want to learn about Excel and it's functionality - you could do just about everything you want in excel if you use the chart wizard and some of the more advanced formulas and/or reformat your spreadsheet. Have you set your spreadsheet as only 1 column or do you have it set up as a table - dates in a row across top and bills down in a column? That would allow you to time your payments and their impact. If it was me in need, I'd try and go the cheapest route and that would be to expand my knowledge of excel and not spend for Quicken or one similar. Once you get a table built, chart wizard is easy.

I use Quicken for some of those kinds of things you mention rushmom - it seems like it could work well for you. My bank does charge $3 per month but it is well worth it to me. You may be able to do these things in a spreadsheet but I think it would be much easier in Quicken since that's what the program is designed for.

I have all my paychecks and regular bills set up as scheduled transactions in Quicken so they come up on schedule automatically. I enter all my other bills in Quicken when I get them with a date in line with when they will be due - and then enter them for payment through my online banking on the due date. My method of budget is just pull all my investments and savings out first, then allocate all the major bills and then whatever is left can be spent. When it's gone that's it until next payday. I manage to what I see left in Quicken - not whatever might appear to be in my bank account. This has worked really well for us.

I also download transactions from the bank every day or two and then catch any unknown debit or ATM transactions DH has made and not informed me of. This alone has saved me a lot of trouble and prevented unexpected surprises. I always feel like I know exactly where I stand.

Hi everyone,

For those of you keeping family accounts pretty well exclusively in your computer, are you careful to have a backup system, constantly updated, in case your hard drive crashes?

If some of you are seniors and the bank/credit union isn't aware of it, they may offer a number of services free. For example, I don't get charged transaction fees (living alone and buying a number of things for cash, I don't have a large number, but pay for utilities, fuel, credit card, etc. by transfer, done in person at the branch). I don't pay for new chequebooks, maybe travellers' cheques free, etc.

In a number of cases - you don't ask, you don't get.

Learning the simple ins and outs of how money works - an interesting hobby, that pays well.

ole joyful

Regarding backups. It isn't just computer crashes that require backups. (Often you can recover most if not all, the data on a crashed hard drive.)

Our computer was stolen once, with all that data. The drive was password protected and encrypted, so it would have required sophisticated knowledge for the thieves to retrieve it. Our backups were only 3 days old, so it wasn't a big deal to replace the data on the drive once we replaced the computer.

We back up in 2 ways: to our son's computer via wireless network, and to a RW disk that is one of 3 that rotate into our basement safe.

I supervised a university computer lab in my student days. My motto then was "Once you have done enough work that you would be uncomfortable losing it, make a back-up."

We get free seniors' services. It is great to finally be able to do large numbers of bank transactions without paying them for every little thing, including holding onto your money for you.

i use Quicken AND Excel. i reconcile my CC, loans, and bank accounts daily online.

i only list recurring expenses in excel. i list out the creditor, the payment amount due, the balance, due date, and the amount i pay each month on this bill. my utilities are about the only one tha tthe payment changes month to month, but those are updated to show current due as soon as i get the bill. i have the second column for what i pay each account since in the first i list minimum due for CC, but i always pay more.

the big advantage to using both is i know at a glance what is coming up. quicken is sometimes a little flakey about predicting account balances, so i look at the spreadsheet and know for sure that i have x amount to pay in 2 weeks and be sure not to let my wife spend it all! i have threatened to remove the check book and debit card from her wallet when she sleeps. she sees the current balance, and thinks that it is all availible. then when i tell her she has to transfer money because she just put us over drawn she sulks for 3 days. happens at least once a month for the last 10 years, you would think she would learn by now!

I have decided to research the Excel route. It's no cost and I'm already using it now. If it doesn't work, then I can always research the programs that I would have to pay for.

davidandkasie, you hit the nail on the head in your second paragraph. That is exactly my problem. Can you go into a little more detail on how your spreadsheet is set up?

What I would see as a big gain with Quicken is that you don't have to enter or type in all of those transactions yourself! All of my debit card transactions are downloaded automatically with a day or so and all autopay transactions are entered by the system.

Quicken has lots of features I don't use :-), of course, but the only "problems" we've had with it is when DH and I got married and had to *merge* our Quicken files. We had to agree on categories--*that* was tough.

When I got paid monthly, I used to enter all of the monthly bills at one time--Quicken will show the current balance and then the balance after all the entered transactions are paid. david, you might try doing that with your Quicken books--enter the amount you'll need to pay in two weeks and post-date it--that'll make it clear that the money *isn't* there.

I used to hide $500--I just subtracted it out and ignored it when reconciling.

--Beth

Rushmom, A couple of Excel formulas that might be helpful are =Sumif (which adds in if certain criteria are met), =Date (if you have a transaction with a specific date), =Now (if it's today's date). Also, if you go to google's home page, and then click on the "groups" tab, and do a search for Excel groups, you can post specific questions and Excel users will try and help with answers.