Money Management Made Easy

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If you are wondering how to manage your money better, a CNN Living article highlights where to find easy money management. The software described is in general free and is usually much more rudimentary than the Personal Finance Software For Seniors that we discussed in a previous post. They may offer everything from displaying spending patterns at a glance to suggesting ways to save.

The three mentioned in the article are:

Mint.com
Keeps track of a great deal of financial information from savings to mortgages, student loans and credit cards. It also helps users save money by directing them to credit cards that offer lower interest rates. It displays investment performance and allows users to compare their portfolio to market benchmarks to see whether their investments are meeting their growth goals. Mint.com has an iPhone application as well as a feature where users can text to receive real-time balances.
SmartyPig.com
Users can open an account for free, set a savings goal and then stash that extra cash. The site lets the user know exactly how much he or she needs to save over the allotted time in order to reach his or her goal. SmartyPig recently launched a mobile site.
Thrive.com
This bundles all of the user’s financial data to help formulate a budget. It also helps its users analyze their financial information and calculates their financial health, aiding them in predicting their financial stability in the long term.

If you want to do a little more research, then Google has many more free money management software offers. Here are the top ranking ones for Google. Of course if you need fast cash to add to your budget for an unexpected emergency, then that is not covered by such software.

AceMoney Lite
AceMoney Lite is a freeware version of the fully featured personal finance manager. It has all the features of its big brother except multiple accounts management. It supports all the features required for home or even small-business accounting needs.
ManageMe
Money Management for Everyone from India indicates that Geographies don’t matter. Whatever part of the world you may be spending in, your accounts stay in your base currency and help you manage your expenses better.
GnuCash
GnuCash is an open source personal and small business accounting package. If you are familiar with the likes of Money or Quicken you will think you have stepped back in time when you open up GnuCash. This is mainly for two reasons. First, the user interface is very basic. This doesn’t mean it’s poor software, it just means the developers concentrated on the stuff that really matters.
IngenMoney 3
This hasn’t been updated in a while now but it is still not a bad piece of software. This is a calendar-based money management application that is good for basic finances and keeping up to date with bills and day to day spending. It also throws in some extra features such as a calculator and, inexplicably, an MP3 player. It does not handle QIF or OFX files so it is quite limited. It can be handy for keeping budgets though.
Easy Cash Manager
This is a simple book-keeping program. You can use the program to keep records of your incomes and expenses. It has only the functionality that you need for very simple bookkeeping, so it is easy to use.
Abassis Finance Manager
Main Features are that you can easily create a personal budget and then track your expenses in detail. It suggests that you can then manage and get rid of debt and improve your savings account.
GFP – Personal Finance Manager
GFP aids personal finances administration with a variety of reports, charts and allows filtering data on screen to highlight important information for your financial health.

Which software meets your needs best is a very personal decision. If you find a particular software works well for you, why not add your comments here on its features. You may help someone else who is checking on alternatives.

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Personal Finance Software For Seniors

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To help handle personal finances in the best way during a tough recession like this, many people turn to Personal Finance software. As a result, there is a plethora of personal finance software programs to consider. The right choice is always a very personal matter given particular needs. However everyone wants a good user experience. In other words it should be a pleasure to use and it should do the job.

If you have this software choice dilemma, you may find the reviews at Personal Finance Software a good place to start your exploration.

Of course everyone and particularly seniors is looking for something that is easy to use and install. So we list below the Top Ten choices in descending order of attractiveness. In each case, the comments on Ease of Use and Installation from the review site are displayed. By clicking on the link, you can see the full review, which clearly you should do before homing in on the choice that works for you.

Personal Finance Software – Top Ten Reviews

with Ease of Use/Install Comments

    Quicken Starter Edition – Gold Award
    Quicken Starter Edition was easy to install, and easy to use. It’s not packed with a bunch of clutter, so finding what you need and figuring out how to use features is a snap.
    Microsoft Money Essentials – Silver Award
    Microsoft Money was easy to install, and very easy to use. We found it had a little more of a polished interface compared to Quicken Starter Edition and Moneydance. The update process was simple, and Money’s home page provides a great at-a-glance summary of your finances.
    Moneydance – Bronze Award
    The main page of Moneydance is visually simple, which is one of its strengths. The navigation bar and buttons can get you to any section, and the main content area neatly summarizes your accounts, even displaying bill reminders and a tidy calendar. Adding new accounts is a snap as well, and Moneydance 2009 connects to a large number of banks and credit unions the world over.
    AceMoney
    AceMoney was easy to install, and even easier to use. It’s not difficult to figure out what you need to do to access your portfolio, schedule bills and deposits, or run reports, to name a few. AceMoney also supports importing data in a large number of formats, including qif, ofx, ofc, qfx, and xml, so even if AceMoney can’t automatically update your account information, it can read files your bank exports.
    BankTree Personal
    BankTree was easy to install, and easy to use, with large navigation buttons at the top that make it apparent where to go to look at accounts, reports, etc.
    RichOrPoor
    We were disappointed RichOrPoor doesn’t have a setup wizard to guide you through the setup process. RichOrPoor doesn’t import any of the standard formats that most banks use, such as qif or csv. You have to locate where the information goes and then type it in. This becomes tiresome, considering some personal finance software packages connect directly to your bank accounts, and most import a standard set of file types. If by chance your bank exports your accounts to a .rop file, your data entry would be diminished significantly. Once you have entered all of your information, accounts, balances, transactions, and so on, the program is fairly easy to navigate. It’s getting there that’s a chore.
    Budget Express
    Budget Express is a software program that focuses primarily on budgeting and does a good job—this combined with its functionality make Budget Express one of the top ten money management products. If Budget express wanted to compete with some of the all inclusive financial software packages, they would have to add financial planning and investing features.
    Account Xpress
    Accounts Xpress doesn’t offer a setup wizard to help you initially input your financial information. This is a real downfall for people who are not familiar with finance software.
    iCash
    iCash has the ability to reconcile your accounts with your
    bank statements and form a budget for everything in your books. We only found five different reports available within this product: balance sheet, profit and loss statement, profit and loss summary, account statement and taxes.
    Home Bookkeeping
    A user-friendly toolbar, that allows you to quickly access all your accounts, expenses, income, planning and debt, makes Home Bookkeeping a good program for the computer novice. The program was easy to install and we didn’t encounter any errors during installation.

Given the importance of the software working for you, if you have either good or poor experiences of any of these personal finance software programs, why not add a comment here. You then will be helping others to make a better choice.

Footnote: If you are interested in books on Personal Finance, then why not visit the Personal Finances Bookstore.

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