Money? Quicken? Pen and paper?

[archcommus]

If not, do you use the regular register booklet? Or keep no records at all?

Also, I know most of you say to shred your bank statements, because you really don't need them at all. But you only recommend doing this for those who DO have online access to their statements, correct?

AND HOW TO EXPORT TO .TXT from MS Money 2005?

 

[jadinolf]

Quicken.

I don't need my bank statements AND I have no income tax deductions so I don't save anything that has to do with that.

 

[Fritzo]

I use money. Having large amounts of money quickens the rate at which I spend it.

 

[Miramonti]

Originally posted by: archcommus
If not, do you use the regular register booklet? Or keep no records at all?

Also, I know most of you say to shred your bank statements, because you really don't need them at all. But you only recommend doing this for those who DO have online access to their statements, correct?

Online access to statements are limited. I think bank one only offers 6 months or so.

I use quicken and have used it for 10 years, but have also kept up with Money thru their evaluation versions as well. They each have their positives and each have their negatives, and overall it doesn't matter much which you use because both suck imo.

 

[Rumpltzer]

My older sister uses Money and suggested it to me last year. I got out of college, started making real money, bought a car, gas, higher rent and all that.

I used it for a couple of months and then got bored with it. It wouldn't connect to one of my credit cards and there was some other quirk that forced me to manually adjust the thing. In the end I just obsessively check my online bank and credit card statements.

I've never really kept a formal budget, and I guess I've gotten use to doing it the way I do it. I've never bounced a check, so it must be working.

It was very interesting to see how my money was being spent when Money separated everything into charts and stuff. Maybe I should try it again...

 

[GeekDrew]

Right now I use Quicken 2003, but I hear that it's gone very much downhill in the last couple of years, so I doubt I'll upgrade. Might check out Money, though. I also hear that it has it's problems....

 

[Deadtrees]

Used to use Quiken made a change some years ago. I don't know about nowadays Quicken but back then they felt like a java based application(or they were really Java based). I did not like the feel of Quicken and found Money to be easier/more convinient to use. I wanted to give Quicken a try again recently, only to find out that Canadian version is Quicken requires licence renewal every freaking year. I just don't get it. I need to buy a software for $50 and have to pay $50 every freaking year in order to keep using the it???? WTF???? I want a software that manages my money instead of taking it.

 

[CrackRabbit]

Money, simply because I can use my pocket PC with it easily.

 

[TwiceOver]

Money, it does the job and was free. My online bank stuff is usually a little behind and I can't account for checks as easily.

 

[archcommus]

I use Money 2005 myself and it's awesome for my needs. I've tried Quicken and hated its interface. No problems with Money here at all. I do have my online bank history and CC history, but IMO you absolutely need your own personal records, be it paper or on the computer, to account for stuff that isn't online yet, like checks, credit purchases, etc.

But now the second inquiry. I've been keeping all of my monthly bank statements for the 11 months or so that I've been with Citizens Bank, but now that they have them online for the past year, I've been considering shredding the paper statements. Is there really any need to keep them? Can I rely on the online statements? And would I ever need statements more than a year old anyway?

With my CapitalOne card, the online statements go six months back. Again, do I need the paper statements?

 

[JujuFish]

I need not worry about that stuff at this point in my life.

 

[archcommus]

Bump.

 

[Baked]

Neither. Notepad is sufficient for my needs.

 

[Jumpem]

Excel. It lets me have the power to do what I want, and display data how I want. I've tried Money and Quicken, but they aren't as flexible.

 

[Anubis]

i pay someone to do them for me, i have no idea what he uses

 

[EyeMWing]

I use Money. It's mildly hillarious.

 

[FoBoT]

Quicken.


poll?

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
Quicken.


poll?

No poll is necessary, I wasn't really interested in whether you use Money or Quicken, I was more interested in whether you use any software at all, or do it by hand, or do nothing.

And am still wondering if I really don't need ANY of my paper bank statements or paper credit card statements. Is six months' worth of online statements sufficient for the credit card?

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: Jumpem
Excel. It lets me have the power to do what I want, and display data how I want. I've tried Money and Quicken, but they aren't as flexible.

That's interesting. I've never really thought about using Excel for that before, but you certainly can set it up to do everything Money does. My question is, what do you use Excel for that Money cannot do for you? If there's some good idea I might actually switch myself.

 

[y2kc]

i use my fingers.

 

[Iron Woode]

neither:

Simply Accounting blows both Money and Quicken away.

 

[archcommus]

I'm interested in setting up something with Excel. But I really don't feel like transferring ALL my transactions.

 

[Jumpem]

Originally posted by: archcommus
That's interesting. I've never really thought about using Excel for that before, but you certainly can set it up to do everything Money does. My question is, what do you use Excel for that Money cannot do for you? If there's some good idea I might actually switch myself.

I'm not familiar enough with Money to know what I am missing. I just tried a demo of it a long time ago.

Right now I have an Excel file with worksheets to keep track of my bank accounts, monthly bills, total debts, and monthly budget. I have to add a 401k type sheet to it soon when my new job starts.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: Jumpem

Originally posted by: archcommus
That's interesting. I've never really thought about using Excel for that before, but you certainly can set it up to do everything Money does. My question is, what do you use Excel for that Money cannot do for you? If there's some good idea I might actually switch myself.

I'm not familiar enough with Money to know what I am missing. I just tried a demo of it a long time ago.

Right now I have an Excel file with worksheets to keep track of my bank accounts, monthly bills, total debts, and monthly budget. I have to add a 401k type sheet to it soon when my new job starts.

I could set one up pretty easily, but it'd take me some time to master all the capabilities of Excel. Plus, I'd need some way to export my Money file to a text-based file, so I could import it into Excel, but I can't figure out how to export to that.

It would be nice to be able to completely control what calculations I can make and how the data is displayed, however I think I'd eventually come across something that I would rather let Money handle than myself, e.g. investments and stocks. Or I might miss some features of Money, like upcoming bill reminders, transactions summaries, etc.

 

[archcommus]

So how can I export to a text file from Money 2005? There are instructions for older versions on MS's site but not for 2005.