My Quicken categories are very, very detailed, but that is what we need.

One suggestion I can pass along is to have categories that correspond to the line items on tax forms.
Makes tax time paperwork quicker & less stressful....

Have used Quicken since early 90's..Categories i use(very detailed)

Mortgage
Home value
Groceries
Dry Cleaning
Household
Home repair
vacation expense
subscriptions
manicures
haircuts
Liquor :)
Auto
sub-Loan
sub-service
sub-ez-pass
Dining
Charity
Clothes
Gifts
Insurance
sub-Life
sub-Home
sub-car
Interest exp
Interest Income
Education
school expense
Medical
Pet expense
Pool Expense
Telephone
Cellphone
Recreation
Utilities
sub-gas
sub-electric
sub-water
Trash removal
tax

Just to name a few :0)

Luann, I'll keep that in mind. We don't have all that much stuff to claim on our taxes (just mortgage interest, charity and some medical), and TurboTax makes it simple, but a good idea, nonetheless.

Qdognj, thank you for taking the time to list all that out! That's exactly what I was looking for, and there are several categories there I never would have thought of, but I'd definitely like to track.

Thanks! :-)

I've used quicken for a long time too - about 16 years. My categories aren't always so detailed - for example all my pet stuff just goes under "pet expense". I have things like Dining out, groceries, charity (contributions), auto: licenses, fuel, maintenance; insurance: life, health, property, auto; household (which is things like hardware, cleaning supplies, etc.); personal care for hair appts and health and beauty aids; medical, recreation (liquor, golf, etc.) entertainment (theater, concerts, etc.) taxes: state, fed, fica and probably lots more. Over the years I've found it helpful to have things very clearly categorized into necessities and luxury/discretionary items. We've been through a few downsizings and it's been very helpful to run a report from quicken on how much we spend on each category every month - and know how much we can cut back based on the discretionary spending.

I think Quicken is a great tool - it's been extremely helpful for us over the years. But I like bookkeeping - at least for my own personal needs - and I like tracking my net worth.

I've always just had it on my home computer vs. mobile. I now pay for just about everything with a debit card and download the transactions every day or so from my bank and then categorize them so no real need to be mobile. I spend very little cash - which is hard to keep track of where it goes - any ATMs go under Misc in Quicken.

Thanks for your thoughts, Gibby. :-) I was working on this last night, and making decisions about what to lump together in more general catagories, vs. what to spread out (basically, what I wanted to be able to track later). One of my dogs was just diagnosed with a medical problem that will require monthly meds for life, so I wanted to track those separately from standard vet visits, etc. And some of my groceries are for the dogs rather than us humans, so I wanted to separate those out too, to get a clear picture of thier food budget vs. ours monthly.

I think I ended up with more specialized catagories than I'd really thought I would. I created two different catagories for Entertaining vs. Entertainment - because we throw at least one large party and several smaller ones every year, and I wanted to track how much we actually spend on those events, exclusive of things like renting movies & going to shows, etc. So I broke them down into fairly detailed sections.

Already I've been using the Pocket Quicken - haven't even synced it with the desktop yet. Our desktop PC is in our office, and I rarely have more than 10 minutes in the morning to check my email...that's about all I look at it per day (today, I made some extra time to check newsgroups, but that's rare even on weekends). But my PDA is always with me - including when I'm sitting in my living room chair being a couch potato after work. This morning I already put in our vet expenditures for the day, and a "cash deposit" to me from my hubby to get to the end of the month. ;-)It's not that I mind bookkeeping, I just want to be able to multi-task...ie, watch TV while I'm doing it, etc. And with it on my PDA, I can enter transactions on breaks at work too...not have to wait until I get home to enter them. I still use checks for most things - my debit card has a daily limit that is okay most of the time, but just frustrating the rest of it, so I just prefer to not hassle with it and use checks instead. I have duplicates so I don't have to keep track right when I write the check - I balance my checkbook online a couple times per week (usually at work on breaks). I rarely have cash...a few times per year at best. I spend it much more easily than if I'm writing a check or using my credit/debit card, for some reason. ;-)

The company my husband works for was just sold (closing on the 31st), and we had a bit of a panic in the last couple of weeks thinking he would be looking for a new job (he has just about 3 months of salary stashed away, but still, not fun). He's decided to stay with the new company for awhile, but I'll admit that part of my wanting to get things in order is just "in case" he ends up looking for work in the near future. Like you said, I want to be able to know exactly where we can cut costs if need be, from one month to the next.

But I think I'm on the right track! I have a few more catagories I'd like to add, and obviously I can tweak it a little in the coming weeks, but for now it's set up, and in use. I feel way more "in control" of everything now, and I think this will really be a good way to figure out exactly what I spend on "what" every month. Hopefully I can use the budget feature later to put more money towards paying off our loans/CC's too. We're not doing too badly, but I'd feel better if we were doing "better". :-)

Thanks again!

Jamie

Another Quicken user: my categories

Auto:
Sub categories are:
Gas
Tabs, ins, service, & misc

Books, Subscriptions, entertainment (this includes anything I buy to read, DVD rentals and Netflix subscription))
Cash withdrawals
Dining Out
Dogs
Sub categories:
Food
Vet
Other (annual license fee, treats, toys)
DSE (my sewing machine payment)
Hobbies
Gifts and Donations
Sub categories:
Taxable donations
other gifts
Groc
Sub categories:
Groceries: other (beer, wine, liquor)
Grocies (food only)

Healthcare*
Household (laundry detgt, batteries, postage, etc, etc)
Misc (for the occasional item that doesn't fit anywhere else)
Mortgage
Personal care/Clothing
Reserves (money set aside each month for those quarterly, annual or occasional expenses)
Inc taxes
Utilities

Greetings Jamie MT - old friend,

How gratifying to hear from you again! I've wondered on occasion how you were and what you've been doing.

I'm thankful that you're getting interested in tracking your money - it helps to know what's going on: then you have an opportunity to change your methods of operation to serve your best interests more precisely. If you don't boss your money, in many cases it'll boss you ... and likely you won't like that much!

I'm suggesting a category called, "Savings" .

I've recommended to many people over the years of being a personal financial advisor that they build several months' worth of income in an emergency fund, readily available in case of income interruption. That is, 3 months' worth as pretty well minimum, 6 mos' better, 9 months' much better, with the goal of having 12 months' income available in the fund.

I feel somewhat hypocritical in recommending that, and so tell my clients, saying that often I don't have such a fund available for nearly immediate use: most such funds are held in guaranteed dollars, in a savings account, money market fund, etc. ... so no growth is possible. And they earn interest, usually at a low rate, and it's taxed at the highest rate. I don't like any of those characteristics.

I'm almost always able to use my credit card to cover a need for emergency funds.

I have a Line of Credit, fully secured, most of the time unused, that carried no iniation fee and currently no inactivity fee, that I can use to pay off the credit card balance in full when the account comes in, thus avoiding paying interest for that period and at a low rate subsequent to it.

That's different from the Line of Credit that I use to make loans for investment - interest on the latter is deductible, but when the proceeds are used for consumption purposes, interest is non-deductible.

Best to keep the two uses fully separate, to avoid disagreements with the Canada Revenue Agency.

Maybe also an item for "Investment", to use when buying various types of asset, e.g. stocks, mutual funds, gold, real estate, etc., that you plan to keep for a long time.

Good wishes for increasingly shrewd use of both your income and assets.

ole joyful

Z8Grandma, thank you for sharing! I hadn't made a category for "Misc" yet, so I should do that. Also, I think I need one for hobbies - I don't have all that many hobbies, but it would be good to track what I do spend, especially since I consider my nail art a "hobby", so it doesn't really fit in the "personal care" type category.

Greetings again, Joyful. :-) I don't post often anymore, but I lurk quite a bit, and always enjoy reading your posts. Thank you for thinking of us - we're doing pretty well, all things considered. We have our health and lots of happiness to balance the stressful times, which is the most important thing.

I actually have two "Savings" categories - one for my husband and I (joint account), and one for the dogs (newly created - my account). My husband also has his own savings accounts, as well as investments that he keeps with a financial adviser. He's much better on the investment & savings side than I am - I don't have any type of "investment portfolio", but he takes care of that for us. And he has to deal with tracking all that, because getting statements and such from him is difficult enough that I don't waste my time. So I just worry about my end of the finances & our debt payments, and make sure he makes the house payment on time.

We each deal with what we seem to be best at - he's better at the long-term finances, I'm better at the month-to-month stuff. I realize it wouldn't work for many people, but we seem to do fine most of the time. I do want to *get better* at the savings thing though, so I don't have to use credit if one of the dogs needs emergency care or something, and there are some home improvement type projects we'd like to save for as well. Much better to have both of us putting money away if possible, I've just never been good at that. But I'll get there - determination counts for a lot. :-)

Thanks again, everyone. Seeing all the other categories really helped, and I had no trouble breaking down my grocery receipt yesterday to record in the categories I've established. Now if I can just make that a habit...

I do my budgets a month ahead of time. I estimate the utility and gasoline costs based on a year ago (utilities) and last month (gas) plus anything special I know is coming up (long trip, rate increases, gas prices went way down).

So, I have the following in our household checking account. I pay all the bills online and we use the debit card for hair/nails and gas. This is pretty much anything that is paid monthly, plus hair/nails and gas. No cash is taken out of this account and we don't debit anything else out of it:

Mortgage (T & I are escrowed)
Electricity
Gas
Cable (includes phone and internet)
Water
garbage
life insurance
newspaper
gasoline
hair/nails
subscriptions

We keep cash for the following (when the $$ is gone for the pay period, you have to find something to eat in the pantry):
Groceries (includes non-durable household items, like cleaning supplies)
Eating out

We keep sinking funds in our savings account for the following:

Emergency fund
Clothing
Car Insurance
Beasties (animals' shots, flea/HW meds, spa days)
Gifts
Termite
Car tags
Car maintenance
medical/dental
Vacation
Vehicle replacement
Home improvement (this is the big "misc." category that gets the standard trip to Lowe's, new bathtub mat, etc.)
Joint mad money
My mad money
DH's mad money
Projects (a big $$ right now while we decide what home improvement project to take on)

I think in terms of gross income and gross outgo -- things I have to pay out. I lump expenses in general catagories. The percentages here are percentages of outgo. Currently there's a 15% overage (savings).

HOUSING (40%) includes RE Tax, Utilities, Landscaping, Insurance and Maintenance. (We have no mortgage.)
UTILITIES are Gas, Elec., Water & San., Phone & Internet, DirecTV. (We are part of our son's cell phone package.)
LANDSCAPING covers yard work, lawn fertilizer service, snow plowing, tree trimming.
INSURANCE is Home, Personal Property, Umbrella.
MAINTENANCE is repairs and replacements -- a slush fund.
***
INCOME TAXES (17%) Federal and State
***
GROCERIES (7%) (including sundries) and LIQUOR
***
MEDICAL & DENTAL (7%) is Medicare Part B, Dentist, MD's & Tests, Medigap Insurance, Medicines, Drug Insurance, Dental Insurance
***
AUTO (7%) is Depreciation (over 6 years), Gas-Oil-Wash-Repairs, Insurance, Licenses (Drivers, Plates, Stickers)
***
CHARITY & GIFTS (5%)
***
CLOTHING (5%) (includes purchases, repairs, maintenance)
***
VACATION (4%) (includes air fare, car rental. Condo owned.)
***
PERSONAL (4%) is hair salon and entertainment (dining out, movies, DVD rentals)
***
VET-FOOD-GROOMING-HOUSE SITTER (3%)
***
ACCOUNTANT (.5%) - Tax Prep

Our expenses reflect two generally healthy retired Seniors with a small family, one dog, one car -- home-bodies who vacation for a month in the winter and do little entertaining. We eat well, but at home. We don't buy much because we already own what we want. We read a lot and watch a lot of DVDs but buy no books or DVDs; we use our city's extensive library.

I keep a separate budget for the vacation rental condo.

I also keep track of assets, and re-visit all of the above at least quarterly to be sure that the numbers are valid.

Hi again Jamie,

Remembering the nice parcel that arrived from you a couple of years ago, with cereals, candy, etc. of Montana-origin, I remember you with affection, Jamie.

Have you a need of professional upgrading, education, etc. which you would need to fund personally?

While you and that reasonably-new-husband each have your financial interests which you follow, do you sit down occasionally to fill each other in on what is going on with your department?

One of the substantial difficulties which a number of families deal with at the time of the departure of one, whether through death or divorce, is dealing with some aspects of the family business that the other routinely dealt with, but of which the survivor had very little knowledge.

Good wishes with the employment situation.

And I hope that this New Year brings the fulfillment of some of your dreams (with possibly the setting up of some new ones).

ole joyful

I find it useful to have a "cash" category. I spend very little in cash each year (I also tend to not to sub-catorgorize costs that are usually under one reciept (unless its a memorized transaction). For instance, I won't separate groceries and cleaning supplies, if I typically buy them at the same store/time. I don't think its worth my time (although I'm sure many people do).

The most important thing is to keep track of your spending. I would just add cat/sub cat as transactions happen, then after a 6 months or so you can revaluate what is best for you. You can always add/delete/change data after the fact.

Haven't been back for awhile with the holidays, but thanks to everyone else who has contributed! The Pocket Quicken is working well & I have all my categories set up, but unfortunately (and ironically, I guess), I don't have the money to register it this month, so it's going to "stop working" soon until February. I need to transfer my categories over to our desktop version before I run out of "run time" on the trial pocket version. Next month the Pocket Quicken registration will be a priority, since it seems to be working better for me than the desktop version.

Ed, no, no professional upgrades or schooling to fund, so that's not a concern. Neither hubby or I had any student loans (we both worked our way through college at the time), so we've never had that debt hanging over our heads. Hubby's job is stable for now, which is a relief (and mine is a government job, so about as stable as I can get). :-)

Yes, we do discuss our finances often, at least once a week and usually more, so that we are well aware of what the other person is doing/saving/paying off at any given time. If something should happen to one or the other of us, we'd at least know where all the financial matters stand, and what to do next where that is concerned.

I do have a "pocket cash" category set up. Ironically, I got cash for Christmas, and more cash from "winnings" at my husband's holiday party, so I actually have been spending far more cash lately than I normally do! But it has been easy to track it with the pocket quicken, and hopefully I can force myself to work with the desktop quicken for the rest of the month just to keep tracking the spending.

I have been separating out items on my receipts - we do a lot of shopping at Costco, and some groceries are for us, some for the dogs, and some of that same receipt might be for paper products and laundry/dish detergents, or household items (like the food processor we bought this month). But it really doesn't take me very long to sit there with the receipt and a calculator, and enter things into different categories with the same check number for reference. Eventually I'll blend the dog groceries and ours together (same meat/veggies), I just want to know how much we're spending on them separately for a few months first, so I have an idea. Curiosity, more than anything else. :-)

So we're on the right track, I think...it's a little bumpy going since we had to dig ourselves out of the unexpected vet expenses last month and the fallout from that (ie, unpaid bills), plus Lucy's new dietary/supplemental needs, but we're doing pretty well all things considered.

This whole tracking expenses thing really does make it easier to know what we have, and how to effectively allocate it in the short term (which is actually going to help me stick to the savings plans, I think).