Finally trying Quicken (2013)

[W2R]

In ordering TurboTax on Amazon, I noticed that I could get a considerable discount on Quicken 2013 if I ordered it at the same time. So, I did. I selected the $30.00 off promotion code for Quicken Starter Edition 2013, so that brought the price down from $39.95 to $9.95.

Probably most of you already knew about this discount, but for those who didn't, well, there it is. Don't buy it if you already have Quicken, because the Starter Edition will not import old Quicken files. Use the other promotion code for one of the more expensive versions.

I have never tried Quicken before, and have always done everything in Excel. Being somewhat rigid in my ways, I expect to remain skeptical about Quicken. But even though I do not expect to like it, $9.95 is cheap enough to make it worth investigating.

(Besides, I am a little nerdy in that I like playing with new software - - - shh!)

 

[ERhoosier]

Been using Quicken for 7-8yrs. Generally OK, but every so often stuff just disappears or internal links between data gets corrupted. Like stock cost basis changes without your input, or account balances drop to zero. Frustrating sometimes. Still find it useful for tracking household finances but I would never trust its figures to face an IRS audit.

 

[W2R]

Been using Quicken for 7-8yrs. Generally OK, but every so often stuff just disappears or internal links between data gets corrupted. Like stock cost basis changes without your input, or account balances drop to zero. Frustrating sometimes. Still find it useful for tracking household finances but I would never trust its figures to face an IRS audit.

I am mostly interested in tracking household finances with it, so it might work out for me. It will be interesting to see what it offers.

 

[AndrewJackson]

I am mostly interested in tracking household finances with it, so it might work out for me. It will be interesting to see what it offers.

I love quicken, even though it could have a much smoother design and interface. The graphs and reports are pretty useful. I have different charts and graphs for things like: liquid net worth, illiquid net worth, mandatory expenses, discretionary expenses, comparisons versus average spending, etc. They also have a nice pie chart that breaks out the current months spending. Overall, if you are a stickler for tracking your networth/expenses, you will probably enjoy it.

 

[W2R]

I love quicken, even though it could have a much smoother design and interface. The graphs and reports are pretty useful. I have different charts and graphs for things like: liquid net worth, illiquid net worth, mandatory expenses, discretionary expenses, comparisons versus average spending, etc. They also have a nice pie chart that breaks out the current months spending. Overall, if you are a stickler for tracking your networth/expenses, you will probably enjoy it.

Oh good, because I am! I have been tracking my spending to the penny, just to see where it all goes. Should be fun to see what Quicken can do for me.

 

[ejman]

I've been using Quicken since 1992 and find it very useful (Currently using the 2010 version). Quicken has different program levels and I've found that the Quicken Premier serves best if you also want to track your investments. For me, one of the best features is the ability to compare and track multiple years and to drill down into the detail just by clicking on a report entry. Prior to Quicken I was using spreadsheets (Lotus 123 !) but once I became familiar with the Quicken way of doing things I stopped since it fit my needs better.

 

[Midpack]

I hope you'll provide a review when you're ready. I bought Quicken about 10 years ago for budget/spending and tried it in earnest for about 6 months before deciding it was just too cumbersome to maintain. As flexible as it is/was, there were a few things that it would not do for me (don't remember the specifics it was so long ago). I never tried it for portfolio tracking/investing (maybe I should have), and maybe not 'going all the way' into Quicken is part of the reason I lost interest.

I've relied on my own (elaborate?) spreadsheets for budget/spending, investment tracking, and (early) retirement withdrawal tracking. My proficiency with Excel (and developing graphs/charts within) is probably above average thanks to my career, so that may be why Quicken is less appealing to me. Having better Internet tools (like Vanguard) has helped as well, and I assume online tools will only improve.

Not knocking Quicken, I've just never got the bug for some reason, and I always wonder if I'm missing something not using Quicken.

 

[bUU]

Well hopefully, if you were just scratching the surface of Quicken back then, you didn't actually buy the version that supported all the investment-related functionality, since they charge more for that. You may not have been able to appreciate what it offered you in that regard, back then, because you didn't have the premium version that provided that advanced functionality.

 

[W2R]

I've relied on my own (elaborate?) spreadsheets for budget/spending, investment tracking, and (early) retirement withdrawal tracking. My proficiency with Excel (and developing graphs/charts within) is probably above average thanks to my career, so that may be why Quicken is less appealing to me.

+1 My own retirement & personal finance Excel workbook includes 19 well filled spreadsheets by now, and has been well customized over the 14 years since I first began working on it.

I'll let you know what I think, although I do not expect to become yet another Quicken fangirl. After all, I have been reading the glowing reports about Quicken here since I arrived six years ago (despite the terrible reviews on Amazon), and had not been tempted to even try it. I still would not have done so, had it not cost me under $10.

I admit that I am curious - - for example, about how they handle spending categories, and about the types of output provided. If I do decide that I want to stick with my spreadsheet approach, perhaps I will get some inspiration for improvements from Quicken.

My investments are simple like those of some others here, so like them I really do not need Quicken to monitor or analyze a small number of (mostly) index funds.

 

[mwetter]

We have been using Quicken since the 90's, and have upgraded the program many times. Problem is, unless the program is upgraded every 3-4 years they shut down the internet access to stock data etc. So if you do have all of your information in the program (which we have) you are forced to update every few years.

 

[Midpack]

We have been using Quicken since the 90's, and have upgraded the program many times. Problem is, unless the program is upgraded every 3-4 years they shut down the internet access to stock data etc. So if you do have all of your information in the program (which we have) you are forced to update every few years.

Hmmm... That would probably irritate me, guess I'm really a cheapskate.

 

[ejman]

We have been using Quicken since the 90's, and have upgraded the program many times. Problem is, unless the program is upgraded every 3-4 years they shut down the internet access to stock data etc. So if you do have all of your information in the program (which we have) you are forced to update every few years.

I stopped using the automatic update feature years ago because I got irritated at Quicken's 3 year update cycle. I find that manually updating prices for the few funds I own takes a minute a most. I don't use the electronic bill pay feature so I find no need to upggrade periodically. Caveat is that recently my computer died (used windows XP) the replacement computer has Windows 7 and I found out that the version of Quicken I was using (2004) did not work well under Windows 7. So I picked up an obsolete Quicken 2010 version for next to nothing and am back in business.

 

[grasshopper]

I have been using Quicken since 1995. Today I find I would be lost without it. In the morning I do a one-step update this downloads, bank, investment, credit cards, all update their respective accounts. I ACH all my bills from my Vanguard sweep account, and have all dividends sent there to pay the bills. Around 4PM, I do another update to catch stray charges and stock market prices, before I shut it down for the night. After all these years most transactions go to their spending category without any help on my part. I spend 5 minutes a day total, unless I am running tax or lifetime planning reports.

 

[Rustward]

We have been using Quicken since the 90's, and have upgraded the program many times. Problem is, unless the program is upgraded every 3-4 years they shut down the internet access to stock data etc. So if you do have all of your information in the program (which we have) you are forced to update every few years.

Used it since '96.
As far as Quicken's access to stock quotes, it is best to think of this as a service. At $60 a copy for quicken every three years, you get the program and stock quotes for $20/year or 5.5 cents per day. It is probably a better value than a monitored home security system for "a little over a dollar a day".

 

[RockyMtn]

Quicken is pretty good although I was more of a fan of MS Money. When Microsoft stopped supporting or updating MS Money (couldn't even get stock quotes) I moved everything over to Quicken.

Transfer from MS Money was pretty easy. Once you get everything set up (bills, linked accounts, budgets, retirement planner, etc) it runs pretty smoothly. I don't buy the new version each year, probably every third year if there is some new feature that I think I would utilize.

Also, if you use turbotax the importing of tax related transactions is pretty seamless. All in all a decent product....once you have all of the info input.

 

[Animorph]

I use Quicken in a double entry bookkeeping (or envelopes) sort of way. I have the usual checking, credit card, and investment accounts. But I also have accounts for "Groceries", "Car Insurance", and anything else you might think of. When I charge something on a credit card I enter it as a Quicken transfer transaction, with the transaction category being the budget account I'm charging to, like Groceries. All the budget account amounts are the available dollars for spending, which is what I like to see. Quicken thinks my net worth is $0, since everything balances to $0 unless I've screwed up, but it is easy to create a report that includes only assets and loans to calculate an actual net worth.

Setting it up like that was the biggest hurdle I had to overcome to make it useful to me. Now I can't do without it. Which makes it stressful to see other software dying out and Quicken screwing up.

 

[rbmrtn]

Been using quicken since M$ pulled the plug on Microsoft Money. If you don't need the online update functions you can get the final version of MS money free, Download Money Plus Sunset Deluxe from Official Microsoft Download Center

I don't like the 3 yr sunset policy for updates. I've been able so far to find a previous year version on ebay for a few bucks that will be good for 2 - 3 yrs, then do it again.

 

[easysurfer]

Back in the early days, Quicken was what introduced me to using a computer for budgeting. But after the program got too big with too many features, I went looking for an alternative.

Now I'm happy with other piece of software called Budget Advisor (windows only). This software isn't checkbook oriented, doesn't do as well as tracking detail like in Quicken, but does a fine job for me as for budgeting.

 

[Khufu]

We have been using Quicken since the 90's, and have upgraded the program many times. Problem is, unless the program is upgraded every 3-4 years they shut down the internet access to stock data etc. So if you do have all of your information in the program (which we have) you are forced to update every few years.

My Quicken 2010 Premier is about to sunset. So I just bought a copy of 2011 Premier for $15 on ebay. I only download security prices, never data from brokers or banks, etc. 2011 Premier works fine for me and I don't have to suffer through the inevitable, serious problems that occur with every new release due to Intuit's crappy QA. Next year I will just buy the 2012 version cheap.

I have been using Quicken since 1997 and find it indispensable. I wish it were better though. The portfolio account is not professional quality, for instance. I should be able to enter a dividend payout rate with all the dates for a security and have Quicken calculate the actual payment in each account with a position in that security, allowing me to reconcile against the brokerage statement. Also, although Quicken has some multi-currency features, it doesn't store exchange rate history and therefore cannot calculate investment performance in any currency, a feature that would be useful to me.

But in the market for a combination of portfolio accounting and household exependiture tracking there is no competition, so Quicken it is, for the foreseeable future.

 

[Ronstar]

Used to use Quicken, but the version I had wouldn't work after I installed a new os some time ago on my mac. I used excel a lot at work, so I created my own system in excel. I've stayed with excel since, and won't change back to quicken. I like my excel system better than quicken.

 

[truenorth418]

I have used Quicken for about 10 years and am a big fan. It is not perfect, and I keep my own spreadsheets, but for me it is the best way to manage monthly expenses across categories. In addition to budgeting, I also use it for retirement planning, net worth scenarios, and some tax planning. The new smart phone app is pretty good at helping me track monthly expenses on the go.

 

[nanannjen]

Costco has a $20 off coupon for Quicken Deluxe or Home/Business, starting tomorrow. Their price for Deluxe was $46.99 before the coupon, so at that price I'm going to go ahead and update my sunsetting 2010. I live and die by Quicken, so I guess I have no choice!