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Good budgeting software?
Aridhol
Daddliest CatchRegistered User regular
Daddliest CatchRegistered User regular
I'm looking for some good budgeting software for either linux, OSX, or windows.
Theres 2 things I want to do.
1: Find out what I and my spouse owe/make per month (is this even a budget?)
2: create a budget month to month and be able to enter expenses as they happen. (e.g. I budget $350 for groceries and we input "groceries tuesday at market X $20" and that comes out of the budget leaving $330)
I'd like something free if possible, cheap is good too and fancy is always nice but as long as it's easy to use and covers the 2 criteria above I'll try it.
Theres 2 things I want to do.
1: Find out what I and my spouse owe/make per month (is this even a budget?)
2: create a budget month to month and be able to enter expenses as they happen. (e.g. I budget $350 for groceries and we input "groceries tuesday at market X $20" and that comes out of the budget leaving $330)
I'd like something free if possible, cheap is good too and fancy is always nice but as long as it's easy to use and covers the 2 criteria above I'll try it.
Aridhol on
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I am a fan of Microsoft Money, but it's not free. It would be very easy to do something like what you want in Excel yourself (I did it before getting Money), but Money has tons of useful tools. You just import all of your bank statement information, and then assign categories to each expense/income. You can set up revolving income/expenses to determine your overall income/expenses per month, or even have Money calculate your budget based on your normal spending (i.e., it will add up all your grocery bills for a few months and average them out). It also includes a budget tracker that will show how much you have spent in the current month toward your allotted budget, and will warn you when any transaction puts you over it.
It's also handy for managing 401(k) and investment portfolio info, if you're interested, and any credit card or other liability/loans.
http://quicken.intuit.ca/personal-finance-software/index.jsp
It's not free but it's really, really good.
LOVE this site.
Thats just me though; I always prefer to see my data stored locally. I just don't trust sites to protect my data.
[edit] Yep, apparently Mint wants to be helpful and download your transactions for you.
That's the first thing I thought, so I didn't really explore it much beyond that. I assume its legit, but that doesn't make me any less wary about it, I mean this IS my bank account info we're talking about here.
I looked at quicken cash manager and I could not find a trial anywhere. I'm wary of shelling out $40 for something without try it.
Does anyone have personal experience with it?
Would it do everything in my original post?
I used to use Quicken, but I got lazy about it.
I love it. I keep my accounts, credit cards, and the shared accounts with my fiancee up to date. It has good scheduling options for transactions (the one pain i found in some of the free ones were their lack of support for being paid on the 15th and last day of month).
The only downsides i've found are on the bank side. I have to go to the bank site, login, and download m y transactions which quicken then deals with. If you are with some of the bigger banks I think you can automate all that though.
all in all.. a great program. I'll probably be upgrading to 2008 when it releases up here.
One tip, if you run vista and install 07. Go to your network connection properties and uncheck ipv6 since quicken doesn't deal with having that on very well (it breaks the transaction download stuff). I've found the explaination before, it was something to do with routers not supporting ipv6 (which mine doesn't) and quicken fails on that and doesn't try the ipv4 stuff.