Personal Finance (Quicken) app for Mac OSX 10.7?

[scootermaster]

So, I used to use Quicken for Windows pretty religiously. I've heard nothing but horrible things about Quicken for Mac. I'm just wondering what y'alls use. A couple of things:

1). I don't really know what qualifies one as a "power user" for Quicken, but I doubt i'm one. I don't use it to print checks or anything. Pretty much I use it to log my expenses on my accounts (Wells Fargo) and to track my investments (Vanguard, TD Ameritrade, maybe Fidelity). I just pretty much want to know where my money's going, how much I have, how much I spend on what (categories, vendors, etc) and how much my investments are growing, etc.

2). So whatever app needs to be able to download from all of the above mentioned accounts.

3). I have Quicken data from like 2001 - 2005, but since I don't have any from 2005-present, I'm not so sure how useful that'll be. The point: Quicken Import facilities aren't the biggest issue. If that matters.

4). I'm not sure if I can think of anything else.

Any thoughts? What do you guys use?

 

[Oil]

I personally haven't used it but have you looked at mint.com?

 

[fr]

I used to use Microsoft Money for the same purposes, but I started using Mint.com and it has saved me a few hours a month.

 

[sourceninja]

Why not use quicken? http://quicken.intuit.com/personal-finance-software/mac-personal-financial-software.jsp

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

The Quicken Essentials for Mac has a lot of web based hooks so it hooks well with your bank. Mint was bought by Intuit.

Haven't had any problems with the new Quicken. Takes a little getting used to from the Quicken 2007 for Mac.

 

[MrChad]

Quicken Essentials gets hammered on the reviews, but it still performs a lot of the basic Quicken functionality well. I helped my brother get set up with it, and he was able to categorize his income/expenses and download transactions from the web. I think most people are upset because Quicken on the Mac used to be on par with the PC version, then Intuit did a complete re-write several years ago (Essentials) and dropped several features. They've added some back with free updates to Essentials, but many are still missing.

One feature you may miss is investment tracking. You can track investments at a basic level, but you won't get the same portfolio management and reporting features as the windows version (http://quicken.intuit.com/support/h...mac-2007-and-essentials-for-mac/GEN82867.html).

 

[KeithP]

Well, I guess someone should say it so I will go ahead...

What about running Quicken for Windows in virtual machine? Virtual Box is free, or the commercial products aren't that expensive, just need a Windows license and your copy of Quicken.

-KeithP

 

[lokiju]

Mint.com

Really.

Been using it for awhile now and my brother just last weekend whos been a Quicken user for years was complaining how he hates that Quicken forces you to upgrade after so long. I told him to just give Mint.com a try and after getting used to it he's now using it over Quicken.

 

[manly]

Well, I guess someone should say it so I will go ahead...

What about running Quicken for Windows in virtual machine? Virtual Box is free, or the commercial products aren't that expensive, just need a Windows license and your copy of Quicken.

-KeithP

This is what I do, although I'm probably just as well served by one of the native apps.

There's iBank and MoneyWell, some others as well.

For the record, Quicken 2007 for Mac probably has feature parity with v2002 for Windows. Quicken Essentials was re-written from scratch and even more limited, as MrChad mentioned. Strangely enough, Intuit recently announced they'll offer Quicken 2007 support on Lion in the near future (it previously required Rosetta on Intel Macs). Not that I'm suggesting using 5 year old software that's more like turn of the century software.

If I was starting from scratch (as you somewhat are), I'd try the native apps before locking myself into Quicken for Windows.

 

[scootermaster]

I don't want to use a VM because, well, I did that before. And instead of downloading my transactions daily, the process of booting up VM Ware (which I own) and XP (which I also own, along with 7), logging in, booting up Quicken, and then taking care of everything discouraged me from doing it. So instead of daily, I did it every couple of days, then once a week, then....

Now, granted, I have a faster computer now, and there I guess I could use one of those "VM in the app" apps, but still...I'd rather have something native.

I've played around with Mint. It seems okay, except I don't like having to re-authorize all my brokerage accounts every time (not sure if this happens with QE as well). The categories interface isn't that great, but it'll do. My biggest concern with Mint is that eventually something better will come along and I won't be able to export my data. It supports tex/CSV export, but does anything useful import that?

Same concerns with QE, which I've tinkered with and like a little better (although it does suck that there isn't individual transactions for investments, just symbol total and cost basis, but I can probably deal). I don't know what the Quicken format du jour is, but does QE export to that? As I said, I just don't want to start using one of these and then have all my data be useless in 2 years when Intuit finally pulls their head out of their asses.

Anyone use SEE Finance, Moneydance or iBank? Those are the other contenders, I think.