Money or Quicken

[Rustic23]

I have been using Money for about a year but it popped up and said I had to buy a copy as the copy that came with this computer would no longer download from my banks.

Money works, but I thought about giving Quicken a try. Anyone have experience with either or both?

[LOL!]

I used Quicken for years and years, then when a new computer came with MSMoney, I used that for years and years. Last year I help my mom with her investments and used her Quicken. Based on those experiences, I prefer MSMoney. I had been using 2002 MSMoney, but downloaded the free trial of the latest version last summer. I liked it well enough to buy it.

You can also download a free trial of Quicken to try it out yourself as well.

[WM]

I tried Quicken for a few months and really wanted it to work, but I absolutely hated it. Probably because our finances aren't that complicated and I have my paper-and-pencil system just the way I want it. I couldn't get Quicken to work the way I wanted and found the whole experience extremely frustrating. After three months of trying to like it, I gave up.

It does have a money-back guarantee, though, so no harm in trying.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quicken will do the same thing to you eventually. Both introduce enough planned obsolescence to require an upgrade on a regular basis.

[Goonie]

Originally Posted by WM

I tried Quicken for a few months and really wanted it to work, but I absolutely hated it. Probably because our finances aren't that complicated and I have my paper-and-pencil system just the way I want it. I couldn't get Quicken to work the way I wanted and found the whole experience extremely frustrating. After three months of trying to like it, I gave up.

Same here.....I tried Quicken, as well as Money. I didn't really care for either....probably because I didn't want to waste invest my time to thoroughly learn either. I've used a 'paper & pencil' system for years, and am quite happy with it. Also, like WM, my finances aren't all that complicated. I have considered trying one of them again, but I probably won't....again!

[KM]

We must have bought our computers at the same time, as I just went through the same thing. I bought the new version of Money.

I have used Quicken in the past. Didn't really prefer one over the other - just felt it would be easier to stick with Money.

[donheff]

I never could keep up with Quicken to the degree required to keep acurate track of individual transactions. I ended up periodically updating my holdings and used Quicken's auto update feature to keep track of market changes. Based on a recent thread here I dumped all our holdings into an Open Office spreadsheet and a Google spreadsheet and use the auto update feature from Yahoo and Google (respectively) to keep them updated with current market data. It is easier than Quicken and gives me a better presentation. I use the total return YTD feature multiplied by the funds' weights in the total portfolio to keep track of return. It may not be the holy grail of internal ROI but it is good enough for me.

[Goonie]

Originally Posted by donheff

Based on a recent thread here I dumped all our holdings into an Open Office spreadsheet and a Google spreadsheet and use the auto update feature from Yahoo and Google (respectively) to keep them updated with current market data. It is easier than Quicken and gives me a better presentation.

Heck, I might consider trading in my 'paper & pencil' system for that! Sounds easy enough.

[audreyh1]

Gosh, I don't know how I could have survived without Quicken! I have used it since 1994.

I don't have any trouble "keeping up" as almost all the data entry is downloaded and automatically categorized. And daily quotes import shows you instant net worth. It's super easy to generate reports, monitor budgets, etc.

Of course, there is a bunch of initial set up todo to customize it to your needs before it runs in this glorious automated state. But that was so long ago for us, and we have been reaping the benefits for many, many years.

Never tried Money.

Audrey

[Notmuchlonger]

We use Quicken. It works. However Im not totally sold on how good it is. I would like to try Money someday and compare.

[JustCurious]

Neither. I use Excel.

[Nords]

Originally Posted by Rustic23

Money works, but I thought about giving Quicken a try. Anyone have experience with either or both?

Of all the financial discussion boards I visit, this question probably pops up even more frequently than active vs managed or indexed vs slice & dice.

We became Quicken hostages back in the early 1990s when Money was a distant joke of a competitor.

Quicken will treat you no better than Money and will use the same tactics to an even more exquisite degree of frustration. It's such a personal experience that it's worth trying both before you give up and build your own spreadsheet decide.

[CyclingInvestor]

After a very light dose of Money and Quicken, I settled on Excel spreadsheets many years ago.
Much more flexible, no upgrade demands, etc.

[Sandy]

I use Excel as well. Easy to adapt to quirks in my thinking and categorizing.

[OAG]

Been using Money since the first Public Beta - it was provided free from Microsoft at the time. Since then I have updated each year and now on version 16. Works fine however, I also use Excel to track lots of CD's and post the total balances in Money.

[Want2retire]

I have tried both Money and Quicken several times but never got anywhere with them because they seem so rigid to me.

Like several others here, I use Excel. Excel may require more effort to input values, but it is worth it to me to gain more flexibility. I can do anything I need to do in Excel.

[FinanceDude]

I got Quicken 2007, and it worked for about 6 months, then I got all sorts of errors. After spending an inordinate amount of time with technical support, the error still exists, and no patch appears to fix it.

I'm trying Money for 2008. If that doesn't work, I might do Excel. To me, Excel is cumbersome.........

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Both products were essentially useless to me. My bank (DCU) chose to not offer a direct quicken download, so I had to download files and then import them, which was a pain in the butt. Ameritrade did offer a direct download but marked any distributions from mutual funds that werent reinvested as zero dollar transactions. After bringing that to their attention a dozen times over 2 years, and whining about it to the SEC and the IRS, they wrote me a nice letter saying that they dont anywhere claim that their electronic downloads are accurate, and that I should consult the paper documents they distribute instead.

I had to redo a years taxes once I found out a few months later that my nifty ameritrade -> quicken -> turbotax setup wasnt accounting for all of the fund dividends.

That was enough for me. Now I put everything at vanguard (except for some cd's and a visa card at penfed) and let them feed it to the online version of turbotax after careful review...

[free4now]

I used quicken religiously up until the year 2000 when a Y2K bug in their Mac version of the software prevented me from uploading most of my old quicken data. I decided that rather than having spotty data I would just give up.

I'm reading this thread and considering going back to one of these programs because I finally have realized that getting everything categorized accurately is not important... if automated categorization and download can get me 90% of the way with no effort, that sounds good to me. But this time I think it would have to be a web-based program... I want a mashup of my existing data at my financial institutions... I don't want to be responsibible for maintaining a shadow copy of that data as Quicken and Money require.

[figner]

Neither, I use GnuCash: Free Accounting Software | GnuCash

I use it just for budgeting and tracking expenses. For investments I have a separate spreadsheet.

However, it's not the most smooth, bug-free experience.
I'm willing to put up with occasional crashes and charts that aren't as professional-looking as money/quicken. On the plus side, it's free and does the job well enough for me, plus it runs on Linux which is my preferred platform. (haven't tried the Windows or Mac versions.)