Best software for budgeting? (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

A friend at work just bought his first
computer and asked me if I knew of software
that would allow him to keep track of his
income and expenditures.

I figured this would be the best place to ask.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SethH]

I use Quicken 2005 Premier. I really like it. I compared it with Microsoft Money 2005 and decided to go with Quicken. By almost all accounts, MS Money has made huge improvements over the years and it is pretty much a wash between the two for the 2005 edition. I mostly decided on Quicken because they have the better history of good financial software, they make it easy to do taxes (if you use TurboTax), and I just generally don't like Microsoft.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I've been a Quicken user for many years (currently using Deluxe 2005 version). It should work very well for your friend. The program allows you to easily create accounts and categorize expenditures. You can setup online links to your financial institutions to automatically download transactions into each account ledger. I have this setup for my banking, savings and credit card accounts (along with electronic bill paying). My next step, when I have the time, is to setup online links to our brokerage accounts and IRA accounts, too.

All the automatic record keeping makes things so much easier at tax time, too.