PERSONAL FINANCE QUESTION

[Rat Rod]

Wanting to know how folks who keep track of their personal finances successfully manage to pull it off.

In the past we have used a 7 year old version of MS Money on a PC. We have kept all of our receipts and manually entered them into the software every week to keep track of our checking account balance. Problem is, there are times when we get behind and the pile of receipts is a mile high and it takes forever to enter all of the transactions. Also, over time, there have been discrepancies that have caused our MS Money to be inaccurate.

We just bought Quicken for our new iMac today. Started it up, and it automatically synced up with our bank account online and downloaded all of our reconciled transactions into the software. Every time we open the software it will sync up with our accounts and update our transactions.

What I'm wondering is, should I still be entering our transactions in from our receipts like we have done in the past so that we know where our account stands or is there some other way of keeping track of our balance that I'm not thinking about. If we enter transactions manually, what happens when Quicken syncs up with our bank account info online....will we end up with duplicate transactions in the ledger?

Thinking there must be some financial nerds out there who can give input. :mrgreen:

 

[Ratfink1962]

Im not the CFO of the family, but my wife is a Comptoller that juggles hundreds of thousands of dollars on a daily basis (not mine, dont I wish!) ... Computer or not she always reconciles the bank statements with the ledger.

As far as multiple entries if you enter it manually, I would say try it out... Add one transaction manually and then sync it to see how the program handles it, probably easier to do it now rather than later.

 

[B607]

I only use cash, and keep it in a box in my closet. Old school. :mrgreen: Gary

 

[aka_locojoe]

Make sure you earn more than you spend and then you don't have to hassle with keeping score

Never used any personal finance software. The wife just keeps track of it all in the checkbook register. Even all the online and automated payments etc.. Does a fine job I might add. Of course things would have to be pretty bad before I'd volunteer to take it over.

 

[Rat Rod]

Okay...you people are not helping here...ha ha! :lol:

 

[Ratfink1962]

I tried.... But Randy got it right! :lol:

 

[Hooch]

whats this money thing I always hear people talk of?

 

[Walker]

Just started using the MINT program online. Fairly intuitive system, tracks your spending, easy to read charts. So far so good.

 

[Wildcat]

There are a couple of ways to streamline the finance tracking.

All debit transactions are now pulled immediately from your account, or they are listed as "pending" on your account. Your bank or credit union should be doing this now. You get a balance and an available balance. You then know your account balance right away without having a 2 day wait to see if you have spent too much. You can check your account online or over the phone. You shouldn't need overdraft protection because you are up to date all the time. No need to keep a program on your computer either.

Use a credit union. I use a military credit union for finances and another one that offers car insurance. That saves so much right there over using a bank. I also rarely write checks for anything anymore, I use the credit/debit card for everything. The fewer ways of spending money is better for keeping track of it. I use one card and it's easy to keep up with, even when the wife is on a spending spree.

I also have my various incomes all fed into one account. Then there's no going back and forth to make sure it was all correct.

Just keeping it simple will cut out a lot of the problems.

 

[Rat Rod]

Thanks Wildcat.

We pretty much do everything that you listed above.

The latest version of Quicken is very cool in that it syncs up with your accounts online every time you open the software and loads the transactions up. The problem is when you get too far ahead of your current balance and things haven't showed up in your account yet. I guess if we kept thousands of dollars in our checking account it wouldn't matter, but unfortunately we're not there yet.