Home Finance programme

[Brewster0101]

Is Microsoft Money still the programme to use for home finances? Are there any better ones or maybe even free ones.

I just want to input my finances, and keep tabs on things.

[nichomach]

Money's effectively been canned - they stopped any real development in, what, 2005?

edit: My mistake - 2007, all sales ended 2009

[Saracen]

In my opinion, no, emphatically it is NOT.

Why?

Because it's a discontinued product, and support ceases at the end of this year.

Having said that, if you have it, are happy with what you get right now and don't want future product development, then fine. But it'll get no further development, and online services are ceasing too.

What to use instead? Options vary.

One option is the online services provided by your bank. Another is that there are various websites, often free, offering capabilities that will be enough for a lot of people. Personally, I wouldn't touch the later under any circumstances, because I am NOT putting my banking and transaction details in some website's hands. Period. For much the same reason, I won't use personal finance software that connects to my bank - they aren't getting access to ANY data they don't already have either.

However, that stance does mean that I have ore work to do inputting and reconciling. That is a price to pay that I'm more than willing to pay to keep at least some of my financial affairs out of banks hands, or at least fragmented among various banks, ensuring that none of them have a full picture.

If that doesn't bother you, then I'd start by looking at what you bank offer.

In my view, currently the "best " offering is Quicken, but even that has UK specific support now removed. It's therefore a bit restricted in UK features, but still in my view, among the best and almost certainly the most full-featured and "reputable" available package. It's probably also the dearest, ranging from about £30 to £100, depending on what you need, with investment tracking, tax planning and enough facilities for small businesses to perhaps not need dedicated software, at the higher end. BUt there are cheaper packages that are well-regarded. Unfortunately, I can't tell you much about them because I have used MS Money and Quicken/Quickbooks since I moved from DOS-based versions of Sage back in computer pre-history before the Web was even a twinkle in Tim's eye .... and Systematics software on Apples, etc, before that.

[Brewster0101]

I have Money 2003 somewhere. Too be honest if it works on Vista that it will do me just fine. I will have to see if my banks website does anything.

I only want to put out goings and income in see my future cash flow and balances.

[mycarsavw]

If that's all you're doing, why not knock something up in Excel/OOo Calc?

[dave87]

Sounds like Excel would be perfectly suitable with a little setup - you can customise how it shows you all the information you want, plus it would maintain the records in an easily accessible format (unlike some programme specific formats).

Depends whether you want an off the shelf package or one that you can build & tailor to your needs?


edit - doh beaten by the VW owner

[peterb]

I looked at finance packages years ago - but there didn't seem to be much point in duplicating all my standing orders, cheques etc in another program.

So I sat down and dfecided what I really wanted was something that predicted my bank balance at the end of the month, and rippled that forward.

So I set up an excel spreadsheet that had all my predicted income month by month, and my varuios outgoings (most of which were known) such as mortgage, insurance, etc and at the end of each month had a predicted bank balance, which carried forward to the next month. I included an allowance for average spending money and so on and ran it over 2 years, so I could add quarterly and annual items.

At the end of every month I just updated the predicted bank balance with the actuual balance, which then rippled forward throughout the year. The point was that at the time I was running an overdraft, and I needed to be able to predict when I might exceed that and take appropriate action as required. It took some setting up, but once it was set up, it took about 10 minutes a month to update. I added a few bells and whistles, like a graph to show how my overdraft varied throughout the year (and a trend) and how close I got to my overdraft limit.

It was really useful when I came to move house as I could put the new repayment figures in and demonstratev that the amount I wanted to borrow was affordable!

[CaptainCrash]

I rather like AceMoney - simple, effective and without the bloat of Money or Quicken. Pretty cheap at $30, and there's also a free "lite" version, which has the same features but only supports two accounts.

If you want something more powerful and completely free, check out GnuCash - it's more complicated to set up and use (a little bookkeeping knowledge will come in handy), and probably overkill for personal use, but it does work well if you want to make the effort.

[Saracen]

On the subject of Excel (etc) I know I've seen free downloadable spreadsheets for home finance. I haven't downloaded any (as I said, I've used Money/Quicken/Quickbooks for years), so don't remember where they were, but they are out there. Somewhere.

[peterb]

On the subject of Excel (etc) I know I've seen free downloadable spreadsheets for home finance. I haven't downloaded any (as I said, I've used Money/Quicken/Quickbooks for years), so don't remember where they were, but they are out there. Somewhere.

Something like this?

http://www.spreadsheet123.com/ExcelT...s/budgets.html