Revisiting the Quicken vs. Moneydance discussion

[gabrewer]

The good news is I did retire on June 30. At age 63, not exactly the FIRE I first wanted, but still better than some of my colleagues who are in their 70's and feel they can't stop working.

The bad news is my obsolete Windows 7 computer with my obsolete MS Money 98 software also decided to "retire" -- that is it died.

So first question - dare I try to load Money 98 on our new Windows 11 computer? I was surprised I could load it in Windows 7; it worked well for many years. But I'm not sure about the potential incompatibilities now.

Secondly, if it is time to make an up-to-date new start -- will Moneydance be a good choice or do I have to suck it up and pay Quicken every year to use their software. I've seen in some past posts that a number of Quicken users switched to Moneydance and were satisfied with the change. Just want to know if that's still the case.

I'm not really too interested in online features; I manually enter all transactions. Beyond basic checkbook management, tracking our investments is also important.

Any experiences or other recommendations are very much appreciated.

 

[braumeister]

Congratulations on the retirement!
About ten years ago I bit the bullet and started new with Moneydance.

There were so many problems with trying to migrate the old Quicken/MS Money files, and so many errors cropping up that I simply gave up. Took the balances in all my accounts, banking and investment, and started fresh with Moneydance.

The old files were exported to spreadsheet files (Excel first, then Numbers later). They exported pretty well, and I have found it extremely easy to use the search feature to look up anything I need to know in those old files.

Now, ten years later, I'm still very happy with Moneydance (plus my old spreadsheets), so I can certainly endorse going that route. One of the nice things about using spreadsheets is that it's so easy to sort them by whatever row or column you want that searching for information is a snap in most cases.

 

[RE2Boys]

I am happily running MS Money Sunset edition on a Windows 10 machine. I suspect the Sunset edition will work under Win 11 also. The Sunset edition is freely available on the Internet.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Been running Moneydance for ages now, it is just second nature, and no subscriptions, we are sticking with it.

 

[tulak]

I moved to Moneydance in 2012 when I bought a Mac. No regrets.

I upgrade Moneydance every major new release, since I want to support the company, but there’s no harm in staying on an older version.

Overall I trust Moneydance a lot more than I do Quicken with my data. Everything is stored locally and based on the implementation of Moneydance+, they take privacy seriously.

Moneydance gives you a free trial, so I’d recommend downloading the latest version and try it out.

 

[ejman]

I run Quicken 2010 on both Linux and windows 10 operating systems and it works perfectly in both. To be honest I'm not really worried about future windows compatibility issues as Linux works so well (at least for this version of Quicken) I haven't felt any need to upgrade to newer Quicken versions and I really dislike "renting" financial software as in subscription plans.

 

[RonBoyd]

About ten years ago, I migrated, after many years (20?) of MS Money. I found the process quick and trouble-free. Infinite Kind has been very good about continually improving the Moneydance software so I suspect migration will go even easier now, 10 years later.

I, of course, highly recommend Moneydance... but I am a little biased ("Old dogs, new tricks" syndrome.)

 

[rk911]

you don't need to subscribe to Quicken every year as long as you're ok with no updates.

 

[Gotadimple]

The only thing I will add (as a confirmed MoneyDance user) is that MoneyDance's Reports module is not as robust as Quicken's, and budgeting is a little more keyboard intense.

But paying Quicken for easier budgeting and more robust reporting is not worth it. MoneyDance doesn't sundown any version of it's software, so you can buy it once and be done. Or do what I did, upgrade about 10 years later for half price.

Rita

 

[topnotcher]

I have been Quicken since 1992 and have always upgraded and now a subscriber. My history is rich and preserved well. For me the cost of Quicken in not an issue. I made my first retirement plan in Quicken and I credit it for giving me an early tool to get FIREd. I REd in 2022 at 52 yrs. Thanks Quicken.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

We have an aversion to subscriptions of any kind. So, I switched to Moneydance. No issues with paying for things, as long as it is not a subscription.