FamilyLife Forums

Does anyone here use "Quicken" to plot their household expenses/budget?  I looked online yesterday and saw there was a free (free in the short term!) download but I don't want to mess with it unless it actually does help.  Currently, I use Excel spreadsheets which work okay, but could be better.  At work I use QuickBooks for office accounting and absolutely hate it. 

Anyone have any input?

You hate QuickBooks? Why? I love it! I'm an accountant and use it for all my clients. However, if Quicken is what you prefer or are interested in, it would be a perfectly fine choice for personal finances. But, if you're looking for a more cost effective solution, I would recommend QuickBooks Simple Start. It's free and it has the basics.

I use Quicken and have for years.  I am not a computer techie, so I think it is pretty user friendly.  I like it because I can categorize all my expenses and then pull them up at tax time.  I can also pull up reports on how much we have spent in different categories, ie. groceries, entertainment, education, whatever.  They also have an "easy answer" tab under reports where I frequently go to check how much I have spent in a certain area or sent to particular person.  I have yet to figure out how to set up an actual budget though.  If you figure that one out let me know :)

Hey Jane,

I've not used Quicken extensively. 

Just as with any canned software, how well it will work for you depends on your committment to following its rules and sticking to the program day after day.

We tried to use a budgeting tool (don't remember which one), and the problem for *us* was that a lot of our expenses just didn't fall into their pre-determined categories.  And, to be forthcoming, it was a pain dealing with, for example, a receipt from Target that had items from across several categories. 

A good thing about Quicken is that it is popular, so there should be plentiful online help, support forums, tips, etc. 

I didn't check all these out, but here is a link to some free tools.

http://www.christianpf.com/free-budgeting-software/

I thought the Crown and Dave Ramsey sites had some free basic budgeting downloads, but I looked and didn't see any.  Either I missed them or they've done away with the free ones.

Maybe you've already done this (you don't need a special application to do it) - but the first thing you guys should do is to track every single dollar you spend for 3 months or so.  You have to have a very good handle on where you are currently spending your money to be able to put together a realistic and effective budget.  It will also show you your trouble spots. 

We learned that we were spending way too much money eating out.  We didn't spend a lot each time, but we had lots of times.

Some application's "suggestion" that you spend X% of your money on groceries could be totally irrelevant and unrealistic in a household with three (almost) teen boys.  We used to pay around $25 for water.  Now we're closer to $100 just due to the rates, not our usage.  Nothing we can do about that.

 

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Love God; Love people.

Seek first to understand before you seek to be understood.

Step 1: Toast the Poptart.

The budgeting tool is usually found under the "Company" tab or some other name. It should be called "Planning & Budgeting."

Holten,

About your issue with pre-determined categories, these software programs always allow the user to create their own Chart of Accounts. If you choose the one offered by their default selections, you can still add or remove categorizes you don't utilize. In the scenario where you mentioned various items from Target, the software allows you to itemize each expense by account when posting. You don't have to use the default selection each time you enter the Vendor name Target and so on.

I think I hate QB mainly because I never had any formal training but just had to sit down and figure it out.  And then our board asks for extensive reports and of course if you don't have things in the right place (because you don't know where to put them), it's hard to get those reports!  We have moved on since then and I did take a training module, but I feel a negative response to the idea of using it at home because I spend so much time on it at work.  I dunno, that's just me.  And I couldn't have less than of an "accountancy" type brain, btw.  Math defeats me.

Holten, I will look at that link absolutely.

We have been tracking our expenses via spreadsheets for quite a long time.  A few months ago, I finally managed to get my h to look at the spreadsheets, and he was very shocked when he saw how much money we spent on "extras".  It was a lot!  Since then, we have started to develop a better budgeting habit, by writing out before the month begins exactly what is needed (rather than wanted) in the form of "extras" and we have also developed an eating plan for our dinners, and we compile a grocery list from that - and stick to it!!

My h did read the Dave Ramsey book, and he then went out and sold his truck and bought a cheap car, with only a 2 year loan, with the hope of following Dave Ramsey's plan.  That said, he hates the car, and now can't wait to buy another truck.  <rolls eyes>

I'm a bit concerned about the amount of confidential information I have to plug into Quicken, like account numbers, credit cards, etc.  This does make me uncomfortable.  My h was ready to go and pull in the free Intuit/Quick program last night, but I wanted some more time to think about it. 

Wow, that's a great link, Holten, thank you!!  You always have awesome resources and thank you for sharing them.  :)

I will send that one home and me and my h can look them over together.

Darn, I hate that I can't edit.  One thing is that I really don't like Intuit.  They have screwed up a lot of things with us for the past 3 years of having QB through them.  (I think it's just Intuit that runs QB, right?)  For instance, our executive director left 2 years ago, and despite many attempts to remove her from the records, she still exists as [first name] no longer working [last name].  ROFLOL.  Every time I see a letter come addressed that way, I have to reflect on the fact that these people hold all of our person data - and yet they can't successfully remove a former employee from the records.  There have also been a bunch of other things with Intuit that have left me feeling that they aren't very "together" as a company.  I was recently told that many of their employees actually work from home, and that is why there is so little cohesion.  And then I'm to trust our family's complete utter financial wellbeing with these people?  Hmmmm ...

Quicken is, in many ways a stripped down form of quickbooks. My wife uses both, QB for a few clients in her part time bookkeeping business and quicken for our home finances. She deals with the finances, with my input, because she's been a banker for 20 years.

Yes Intuit produces both Quicken and QB.

The personal information you put into quicken doesn't go anywhere outside of your computer. One of the cool things about it is that you can set it up to automatically import your bank statement data from your banks online banking system so then, instead of entering everything you just have to go through and put each transaction in the right category. I think some of them even go automatically.

But like Holten said, if the tool doesn't fit the way you work or do things, it's likely to be a much of a hinderance as it is a help.  How you track the finances isn't as important as finding a way that works for you and consistently doing it.

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Chaz345

I can see why you hate QB since your employer decided to throw you into it. I hate it when business owners do this sort of thing because they assume QB is something anyone can use, it isn't. You need to know accounting and/or bookeeping, how to track debits and credits, how to use the chart of accounts, etc. It's just a way for employers to rip off their employees instead of hiring a staff accountant or bookeeper, they put the additional responsibilities on another employee. Then at year end they're wondering what's wrong. But I digress...

That is a great link Holten!

Intuit does own Quickbooks and Quicken, but you are the only one who has the information on your computer. The only time Intuit would access that information is if they were providing tech support and needed to log on to your computer remotely. Don't fear about this one thing (putting your account numbers, etc) into the system. Besides if you have the hard copy software, not the on-line download, you can easily skip those sections and it would have no negative effect on your reports at all.

I've used Quicken since the early/mid 1990s.  At first, everything was self entered.  That seemed to work best.

As it became internet enabled, and tried to do so much more, down load transactions, etc, it seems like it's not as good.  Perhaps it's just my frustration that it promises to be more easy than it is sometimes.

I use Quicken 2008 Deluxe right now and it can download most, but not all of my transactions.  One bank requires two updates as the first almost always fails and the link to do it over usually always works.

I have NEVER been able to reliably d/l my Citi Shell MasterCard transactions automatically, but can download them from Citi and import them with a minimum of fuss.  It really is easier just to enter those (about 8 to 12 transactions a month) into the program by hand.

Discover transactions were troublesome from time to time, but I can d/l.

The hard part is getting things set up.  Once you set it up, things become more automated.

I've also collapsed some categories due to how we shop.  Rather than have a groceries category and then a household category, I treat them as one bucket.  So buying food and buying TP, lightbulbs, etc is one monthy budget category so those trips to Wal*Mart don't have to be split out in too many categories.

If I'm picking up gifts or car maintenance items there, I can usually enter those few transactions by hand, or I estimate how much of a transaction was gifts and split it out. 

Quicken still uses a checkbook ledger like interface, and it allows you to divide entries into multiple categories.  So those Wal*Mart receipts can be divided into Household, Auto:Service, and Gift categories when I enter the transaction.

I like the reporting because I can sit down with my wife and say we are spending X on Childrens activities, we've saved Y, and here is where we are on our goals.

It's also nice at tax time because I can see all those charitable donations we've made.  The bigger ones are easy, but smaller ones like United Way etc are not always remembered.  But if you enter the check, then Quicken will remember for you.

Then, if you use TurboTax, you can import your data from Quicken into your tax return.

However, I don't like it as much as it tries to do more, and fails at more of it.  I only bought the last update of Q2008 Deluxe because I could no longer d/l transactions with my previous version Q2002 or Q2003, IIRC.  So I stick with a version until I have to update.

I was getting free updates from my bank for a while, but that ended when they were acquired by another bank.

I no longer use Quicken Bill Pay.  I did for years before it was a service that banks offered for free.  Intuit kept raising the price and I stuck with it because it worked.  Until they goofed up my mortgage payment and caused an overdraft in my account while money was tight due to my divorce and then wouldn't resolve it.

So I fired Quicken Bill Pay and use the service at my bank.

I think I liked the product best in the late 90's early 2000's.  I don't like it as much now, and if I had to start over, entering everything, I'm not sure I'd go to as much detail as I do today.  It's a lot of work up front and requires periodic attention.

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It is illogical to argue logic with someone unwilling to examine more than his/her feelings on a matter.