Ok .. so i have to buckle down and start budgeting better .. getting a new car, saving for a house, etc ...

what good software is out there to help out? i know of quicken and MS money, but which is better? what do you guys use to keep track of everything in one nice place?

 

I began using Quicken for DOS. I switched to MS Money about 2 years ago. I mainly switched because Intuit stopped supporting my 98 version and I got a free copy of Money with TaxCut. Both are good.

An important feature is that whatever you choose should be able to talk to your bank and credit card companies. That's a great feature. Make sure your bank/CC supports whatever package you choose.

 

well quicken automatically will download one of my CCs ... for my bank accounts and other card i will have to download a file to import into quicken. not sure about money yet, i'll have to look into it.

 

Any of them will do fine. Believe me, software isn't what's keeping you from budgeting. It will help with the neat tricks and reports but basic pencil and paper is all you really need.

 

A simple Excel worksheet and some dicipline is all you need.

Quicken, etc. won't change your spending/saving habits.

 

when i switched to quicken, money started to magically appear in my bank account. true story...

 

Dude, that's awesome!

 

The 2nd half of this story is where his Quicken bank account didn't reconcile with his real bank account since he put his salary in Quicken as $1,000,000 and budgeted spending $900,000 and saving $100,000. Another story of the power of Quicken.

 

I like Quicken ... been using it since 1994. I'm sure Money does a great job, too. Only thing that pisses me off is how they create a new edition each year. Kinda reminds me of Windows ... LOL.

 

You know what, it's true.
It's amazing how much less money you spend once you start paying attention to it.

And to fill in this thread, what you really need is dicipline. Twice a month, I go through, punch in my credit card statements, and any cash receipts I keep in my wallet for the two weeks (grocheries etc).

The rest I fudge (eating out, which I have a ballpark estimate for).

 

I went from money 2001 to 2003, totally regretted it, and am probably never going to upgrade again. ALthough if you use online banking through it I think there's some of annoying manatory 2 year upgrade. So to hell with the online banking imports. It's not that hard.

 

PGA uses an small notebook to write down everything he spends money on. Sometimes the simplest solution is sometimes the best.

Start with something simple (like an excel spreadsheet) and go from there...

I'm a cheap bastard so I haven't really worried about this type of stuff. It's easy to save when you don't spend money on anything. I've got every nickle I've every earned still

 

So living at home with the parents isn't so bad then?...

 

MS Excel is all I use and need.