Who uses Quicken

[rjpatt]

How many people on here use Quicken or Money? Computers and online banking have been around for most of my banking and investing experience so I was wanting to know what the advantage of these programs were. I keep a spreadsheet listing my assets and liablities so I know how much money have and I use online banking to see what my checking balance is, but may be I am missing an advantage of these programs.

I still laugh when thinking about my dad balancing their checkbook monthly and there would always be one or two checks that my mom forgot to write in the register and it would drive him nuts trying to figure out the amount and payee. His life would have been easier if could log onto chase.com and see images of the cleared checks.

[wabmester]

I tried fighting with Quicken. Quicken won.

Good idea, poor execution.

[scrinch]

I tried fighting with Quicken. Quicken won.

Good idea, poor execution.

Ditto. It was easy to do 90% of what I wanted, but wasn't worth the fight to get the remaining 10% complete. Excel is not as fancy, but it works 100% of the time.

[KM]

I used Quicken many years ago. I now use Money, because it came with my computer(s). I can't really compare the two, as I have been on Money for a while now.

I think the biggest advanatges of using either over a spreadsheet is 1) the automated updates with your mutual funds, 2) easy balancing of checking accounts, and 3) some of the reports are nice to have. In particular, you can see what you spend on each and every category over various periods of time just by running a report. That helps me readjust my budget each year.

[wabmester]

Gummy has some great macros, including stock quote download stuff.

I haven't had a chance to play with them much, but here's a quote from the last Quicken thread:

Originally Posted by kcowan

If you want to play with Excel, here is a great selection of spreadsheets.

The latest one that I am using is this download that will download anything that Yahoo quotes. He also supplies templates for downloading from other sites such as Morningstar.

[audreyh1]

I've used Quicken since the 1993. Works great for me and things have been pretty smooth over the years and numerous versions. The bugs are minor. I have a very extensive file. I can generate all sorts of fabulously useful reports with very little effort, and I have a large catalog of customized reports memorized for instant reporting of common things I want to know.

The download interaction with all my financial institutions works extremely well - it's so easy to keep up to date with hundreds (thousands?) of transactions a month. I manually enter very little data - almost everything is automated.

Audrey

[AltaRed]

Ditto. I have used Quicken since 1995 and have been quite happy with it. It does have its quirks and idiosyncracies, but I wouldn't want to give up on the ease of keeping everything in one tidy place.

[Nords]

Quicken hostage since 1992...

[Linney]

Another Quicken user here. Been using it since 2001. Yes, it has its annoying features but makes it VERY easy for me to do expense tracking, checkbook balancing, and cash flow reports. Set up took some time. Once setup is dealt with, getting information from Quicken is easy because most tasks are automated.

I use Excel to track investments. Found it easier than Quicken to use for that task.

[Tadpole]

Originally Posted by Linney

Another Quicken user here. Been using it since 2001. Yes, it has its annoying features but makes it VERY easy for me to do expense tracking, checkbook balancing, and cash flow reports. Set up took some time. Once setup is dealt with, getting information from Quicken is easy because most tasks are automated.

I use Excel to track investments. Found it easier than Quicken to use for that task.

ditto

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Ditto on the 'too much trouble'. Didnt download directly from my bank (which was my banks fault). Some transactions from ameritrade didnt record properly (all paid out dividends came out as a zero dollar reinvestment in the fund) and that was ameritrades fault, which they didnt fix for three years.

I discovered after a tremendous amount of regular work feeding stuff into it that I wasnt getting a lot that I didnt already know or could figure out with a lot less work.

All of my regular monthly providers (electric, gas, water, etc) let me look at the last couple of years usage online. All my food goes on one credit card. All the stuff I buy I dont need goes on another. Real easy to get a handle on discretionary vs non-discretionary and update my simple budget spreadsheet once a year.

Oh yeah, and if you do get it working, they make you buy updates after a year or two when they stop providing support and newer bank/investment provider files. Even though you dont need anything in the new program.

I havent bothered balancing my checkbook since 1992. I did it for years and any mistakes were always mine. I check my bank statements and credit card statements when they come out for anything that doesnt look right, which rarely happens. Really easy to spot the outliers when you bucket out stuff to specific credit cards.

Spreading all the stuff out also maximizes credit card cash rewards, since most limit them to $250 or $300 per year per card. I'm reeling in about $1000 in refunds, rebates and cash back on my spending just for using the right pieces of plastic in the right places.

[Gumby]

I tried Quicken for a few months. For my simple needs, it was too much work. I keep a paper checkbook that I never balance, I track my investment portfolio using Financial Engines, I use only one credit card and I use my own Excel spreadsheet for budgeting and tracking expenses.

Originally Posted by AltaRed

Ditto. I have used Quicken since 1995 and have been quite happy with it. It does have its quirks and idiosyncracies, but I wouldn't want to give up on the ease of keeping everything in one tidy place.

Ditto since 1992. - It has a few quirks, but once you get used to it, I would not want to live without it.

[Coach]

I'm a long time Quicken user. It's a love-hate relationship, but bottom line it's useful enough to keep me using it, and upgrading every few years.

I tried a Money 2007 free trail recently, and hated it. It's a giant billboard plastered with ads.

Coach

[figner]

I started using a free Quicken-alternative a few months ago (Gnucash, running on Linux), and found it surprisingly useful. Never used the commercial software so I can't compare them, but it's helped with budgeting and making sure I'm tracking expenses better. Till now I've mostly budgeted "by feel" - if I feel like I've been spending too much in one area, I'll stop for awhile. And I've used spreadsheets to get rough breakdowns, which has worked reasonably well but not as accurately as Gnucash.

This year I started using several different rewards credit cards and it became harder to mentally keep tabs on spending, so I finally caved and decided I needed software help.

[Jake46]

Been a Quicken useer since 1997. It's frustrating at times but I have grown to depend on it. I use spreadsheets to track my investments. I had too many problem entries when Quicken downloaded investment transactions.
Jake 46

[Leonidas]

Used Quicken forever - from the DOS versions to Quicken 2003. Switched to MS Money last year because I couldn't stand Quicken's strong arm tactics to constantly make people upgrade. Money lacks some of the features Quicken has, but I do like how Money easily transfers data to Excel.

[Poundkey]

I guess I agree with most here. I use Quicken. Find it to be less than user friendly......liked the older versions much better. Also use a weighted average spreadsheet.

[TromboneAl]

Hate it, use it. The best is the automatic downloading and categorizing of data.

[WilliamG]

I've used Quicken since 2000. Wouldn't want to be without it, although it is far from perfect. ESPECIALLY when you go from a PC to a Mac. The one thing I like less on Mac is the Quicken version there. Looks like they started from scratch and what I have now bears little resemblance to what I had on the PC. Still gonna use it though.....