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How do you manage/track your finances?

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Originally posted by: Safeway
Some people are too stupid for checking accounts. The bank should require you to pass a financial quiz before granting you an account. That would get rid of all the "two rent check" morons.
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What is "two rent check"?
 
i'm using ms money and mint concurrently for now...once ms money is phased out, hopefully mint will do the job.

ms money is more flexible, and more powerful...but if mint is functional, i guess i can live with it
 
Do my budgeting in Excel and leave taxes to my CPA.

Everything else is in the files/statements.


Originally posted by: BoomerD
Originally posted by: Gothgar
Originally posted by: allisolm
So how am I supposed to track a check that I write that someone doesn't cash for two weeks?

That's enough to make a body weep. 🙁
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what if it was a rent check that you paid to someone and they waited a whole month to cash it along with the next month's rent check you paid them?
Click to expand...

Oh shit...not this again...how about this:

Once you write the check, deduct the money from your account and do NOT spend it even if the check hasn't been cashed yet?

It really doesn't matter if they take 2 months to cash the check...just treat that amount like it's already been deducted from your account.

Checking accounts 101
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Exactly. Just deduct the amount of any checks from your balances once you mail them and they "go live". Sit back and wait for the balance reported by your bank statement to match your calcs.

It really requires no effort on your part.
 
This sucks. I have every financial transaction that I have made since early 1999 in MS Money right now. It is awesome to be able to go back over ten years and see what I spent, or view graphs on my spending over that amount of time.

I use the automatic transaction update feature daily, on top of the many manual entries that I make. Excel simply wouldn't cut it for me, and everyone who says to use a checkbook or paper is simply missing out of the power of a program like this.

I guess I am going to have to switch to Quicken, because all Mint.com really is is an aggregator, and I want something more powerful than that.
 
Originally posted by: Drekce
This sucks. I have every financial transaction that I have made since early 1999 in MS Money right now. It is awesome to be able to go back over ten years and see what I spent, or view graphs on my spending over that amount of time.

I use the automatic transaction update feature daily, on top of the many manual entries that I make. Excel simply wouldn't cut it for me, and everyone who says to use a checkbook or paper is simply missing out of the power of a program like this.

I guess I am going to have to switch to Quicken, because all Mint.com really is is an aggregator, and I want something more powerful than that.
Click to expand...

I haven't used MS Money, but shouldn't there be a way to export most of that data out, and put it into some other system?

Why is MS discontinuing Money anyways?
 
Originally posted by: compuwiz1
By hand as I always have.

Pen
Bills
Calculator
Checkbook
Internet
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:laugh:

Makes me think of Saving Private Ryan when that idiot is running around the map tent with his typewriter and asking a billion questions and rattling on. Tom Hanks simply holds up a pencil. :laugh: Gold. Simply gold. 😀
 
Originally posted by: KingGheedora
Originally posted by: Drekce
This sucks. I have every financial transaction that I have made since early 1999 in MS Money right now. It is awesome to be able to go back over ten years and see what I spent, or view graphs on my spending over that amount of time.

I use the automatic transaction update feature daily, on top of the many manual entries that I make. Excel simply wouldn't cut it for me, and everyone who says to use a checkbook or paper is simply missing out of the power of a program like this.

I guess I am going to have to switch to Quicken, because all Mint.com really is is an aggregator, and I want something more powerful than that.
Click to expand...

I haven't used MS Money, but shouldn't there be a way to export most of that data out, and put it into some other system?

Why is MS discontinuing Money anyways?
Click to expand...

It's a proprietary format. It's money-related including bank account numbers, routing numbers, usernames and passwords, etc. Don't you think they'd want to encrypt that sort of thing?

They're not supporting Money anymore because it doesn't make them any money. If they were stopping support because of a new product, they'd introduce the new product and introduce ways to soften the transition between MS Money before killing support for Money, so the idea of a M$ replacement is out.
 
Originally posted by: KingGheedora
Originally posted by: Drekce
This sucks. I have every financial transaction that I have made since early 1999 in MS Money right now. It is awesome to be able to go back over ten years and see what I spent, or view graphs on my spending over that amount of time.

I use the automatic transaction update feature daily, on top of the many manual entries that I make. Excel simply wouldn't cut it for me, and everyone who says to use a checkbook or paper is simply missing out of the power of a program like this.

I guess I am going to have to switch to Quicken, because all Mint.com really is is an aggregator, and I want something more powerful than that.
Click to expand...

I haven't used MS Money, but shouldn't there be a way to export most of that data out, and put it into some other system?

Why is MS discontinuing Money anyways?
Click to expand...

Quicken can currently import up to 10,000 transactions from a Money file, but that wouldn't nearly capture my entire history.
 
Originally posted by: BoomerD
Originally posted by: Gothgar
Originally posted by: allisolm
So how am I supposed to track a check that I write that someone doesn't cash for two weeks?

That's enough to make a body weep. 🙁
Click to expand...

what if it was a rent check that you paid to someone and they waited a whole month to cash it along with the next month's rent check you paid them?
Click to expand...

Oh shit...not this again...how about this:

Once you write the check, deduct the money from your account and do NOT spend it even if the check hasn't been cashed yet?

It really doesn't matter if they take 2 months to cash the check...just treat that amount like it's already been deducted from your account.

Checking accounts 101
Click to expand...

this exactly
 
Originally posted by: GiggleGirl
Originally posted by: BoomerD
Originally posted by: Gothgar
Originally posted by: allisolm
So how am I supposed to track a check that I write that someone doesn't cash for two weeks?

That's enough to make a body weep. 🙁
Click to expand...

what if it was a rent check that you paid to someone and they waited a whole month to cash it along with the next month's rent check you paid them?
Click to expand...

Oh shit...not this again...how about this:

Once you write the check, deduct the money from your account and do NOT spend it even if the check hasn't been cashed yet?

It really doesn't matter if they take 2 months to cash the check...just treat that amount like it's already been deducted from your account.

Checking accounts 101
Click to expand...

this exactly
Click to expand...

So far I don't see anyone in this thread that doesn't understand this. OP knows that he has to account for written checks in his balance, and he wants an application that will assist him in keeping track of all of his transactions, whether they've posted or not.

I use Quicken, and also have Pocket Quicken on my pda/phone. I'll be extremely pissed off if Intuit discontinues it... hopefully there are enough of us still out there that they'll keep it around for a while longer.
 
Originally posted by: GeekDrew
So far I don't see anyone in this thread that doesn't understand this. OP knows that he has to account for written checks in his balance, and he wants an application that will assist him in keeping track of all of his transactions, whether they've posted or not.

I use Quicken, and also have Pocket Quicken on my pda/phone. I'll be extremely pissed off if Intuit discontinues it... hopefully there are enough of us still out there that they'll keep it around for a while longer.
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Yes, thank you. I want to hold my own data and control it just like any business would, but also want modern features like syncing and reconciling and mobile viewing. I'm surprised there isn't more competition in this market. Even with banks' websites and services like Mint, I would guess there are still a lot of people who want to leverage the power of a desktop app and the internet to gain more control over their finances.

I'm a software developer and am extremely tempted to just develop my own solution. It would be very possible except for the auto-syncing stuff. I really no see no way to do that myself besides just running a dumb AutoIt script or something. Plus the time investment would just be too high.

 
There are a couple of open source solutions out there, GnuCash rings a bell. Last I looked at it, it didn't meet my needs because of syncing with banks, and because it wasn't portable.
 
It seems many people here have zero interest in leveraging the power of a computer and the internet to improve how they handle their finances. Interesting, since you alreday use it to improve so many other things you do, and finance management is a natural fit. I'm really not interested in going back to 1990 by using a spreadsheet program or paper. It appears my only options are to deal with Quicken and hope it doesn't die out like Money did, or forfeit all my old data and many more advanced features and just use an online aggregator.
 
Originally posted by: minendo
Excel
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Excel (2007) even comes with a template for monthly expenses... not to mention the hundreds or thousands that surely are available by searching Google.
 
Originally posted by: archcommus
It seems many people here have zero interest in leveraging the power of a computer and the internet to improve how they handle their finances. [snip]
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I hear ya, I'm surprised at some of the responses on here. I use Money to sync with my checking, savings, credit card, stock, 401k, and Roth IRA accounts all at once. Sure, a simple spreadsheet works well if all you care about is balancing a checkbook, but I use it to keep track of:

  • how well (or poor) the stocks/funds are doing in my stock,Roth, & 401k accounts
    dividend payments
    my automatic dividend reinvestments back into stock
    any key news items on my stocks
    how much principal I've paid down on my home mortgage
    what categories my money is being spent in
    graphs of various aspects of account information
    "what if" scenarios of tax implications if I sold stock
    directly importing all account information into tax software (i.e., Taxcut)

Sure, I could get all this information from each individual website, and compile it myself in a spreadsheet. But I'm going to be honest with myself, that's going to get old in a hurry, and I'll probably stop doing it real quick. It's great to be able to download all my accounts' information a few times a week, and review what all my accounts are doing at a glance. When I need to do a deeper analysis, Money does that for me too. Not to mention, the direct import of stock sales directly into tax software saves me a lot of typing.

I'm going to keep using Money right up until the drop-dead date, but I'm going to be in a world of hurt when I can no longer sync, since I've become so accustomed to it. I'm hoping Quiken, or some other software product can completely fill the void.

Basically, I don't know what I'm going to do when they finally pull the plug on Money. But I'm going to keep riding the horse until it's finally dead.


 
Originally posted by: archcommus
Problem with Excel is lack of features. No syncing with banks, no mobile viewing. Sure this can work great, but this is 2009 and I have the internet and a phone with internet. I should be able to have a pretty simple feature like auto-reconciling with the banks, like Money's been doing for years, and mobile viewing, like iPhone users can do with Quicken Online.

As Special K pointed out, MS will continue to support Money through January 2011. As a standalone product, yes I could continue to use it indefinitely. The problem is that eventually online syncing will cease, and that's one of its best features. Also, even now, I can't auto-sync with Citizens Bank unless I pay some stupid monthly fee for special login information, so I'd like to move away from that to something like Mint where it will sync for free.
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why would one need to sync anything with a bank if you've already balanced your checkbook on excel?
 
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