The Secret to a Successful Budget eBook, 101 Ways to Save Money booklet, and exclusive coupon codes to save 20% off ($10.00) Moneydance personal finance software and 10% off You Need A Budget Software ($6.00).
Earlier this year I started on a quest. It is the most noble of pursuits – to find the best personal finance software.
My mission, of which I was given no opportunity to accept, is to find or upgrade my a personal finance software by April 30th, 2010.
I currently have Quicken Personal Finance Software, but alas my friends at the Intuit company want to continue to generate income so as of that date I will no longer be able to update my information via the internet. This, unfortunately, renders my current software as virtually useless.
So, to be honest I’m a little anxious to get away from Quicken. I wanted to teach Quicken a lesson (don’t charge useless fees or you’ll lose customers) but, I didn’t want to deal with the learning curve of a new program.
Best Free Web based Personal Finance Programs
I’ve never used any of the programs below. However, from my research the all seem like viable options.
Mint www.mint.com Easy to use and navigate, popular, satisfied users. Cannot track cash, small bank and credit union issues, tracks what has been spend instead of what will be spent
Wesabe www.wesabe.com – similar to Mint but does track cash Wesabe will be discontinued effective July 31st, 2010.
Yodlee www.yodlee.com
If you want a product that has a different feel to it try the free PocketSmith online tool. If you want to try and win a free PocketSmith premium membership valued at $60 just be sure to leave a comment on one of the Money Saving Monday posts this month.
Disadvantages of these free products:
Most Frequently Recommended Paid Desktop Personal Finance Program
MoneyDance – Here’s my full Moneydance review.
I’ll be honest – I’d never heard of MoneyDance before. However, there seems to be a lot of positive comments about it that ultimately this is one of the products I’m going to try.
Their foreign currency capabilities is one of the most appealing elements.
Most Frequently Recommended Free Desktop Personal Finance Program
GnuCash (http://www.gnucash.org/) was the most recommended application. I am also going to give this a try (alongside MoneyDance) however I’m less confident about GnuCash because the reviews talk about how it has a pretty steep learning curve. I’m not one to stick around a lot of complicated programs so we’ll if I survive the trial.
Best Personal Finance Software For Mac Users
MoneyWell is a must try program for Mac users. There was some great comments and recommendations for MoneyWell.
Best For Personal Finance Program For Budgeting
You Need A Budget (YNAB)
YNAB has some positive feedback and recommendations. YNAB is very specific in what it does (budgeting) but also very effective for that. Here is a YNAB review.
Moneydance: My Final Choice For Personal Finance Software
I automatically eliminated the free online products, because I wanted a desktop version.
Earlier this year I did purchase and use You Need A Budget. It was a great program, but it did not have the foreign currency tools that is so important to me.
I was intimidated by GnuCash.
So I went with MoneyDance. I’ll give a full review sometime in the future but I can say we really like it (we’ve had it for a couple of months now). For full disclosure I should mention that the folks at MoneyDance gave me a free copy of their product. But, they didn’t give me a free copy until I first bought MoneyDance for $40.00 (updated 8/27/10 – the purchase price in now 49.99). When the found out I was a personal finance blogger they refunded my money.
I wanted to finish this post with a quick fact about MoneyDance from one of their online reps:
In case you don’t already know this, we have a generous trial so users can decide if they like our program before they purchase it. The demo version is fully-functional and allows you to manually enter 100 transactions. Imported transactions are not limited. If users decide to purchase the program at a later date you can keep all your data, the license key simply unlocks the ability to manually enter more transactions. … We also provide online customer support to all of our users, even those who are using the free trial version.
Get your free MoneyDance trial version today.
Is personal finance software necessary?
For a moment I thought about taking a stand against buying a software package. Instead, I was going to use Excel (just like I do for my personal budget) to track everything. However, I quickly realized that this would be a lot of work to set up and I don’t want to take the time to customized everything to track my investments and such.
I decided that I would buy another software.
What Personal Finance Software Features are Most Important To You?
Initially I was going to set this up like my 88 best personal finance books post where I tried to find the most recommended personal finance software. However, I quickly came to discover that the best personal finance software has everything to do with what you are expecting and what you prefer from your software.
Here’s what’s most important for me:
- A product that allows me to see all my account balance and activity in one single location
- Can download information from the internet
- Tracks investments
- Foreign currency features are important
- Customizable and proactive (not just reactive – I can enter information not just sort bills once the money has been spent)
- Because of my lame internet service I prefer a desktop version not web based
A Note About Free Personal Finance Software
I think that we can all learn something from the fact that Microsoft Money recently closed it’s doors. They cannot compete against the free products. I take that as a compliment to the free stuff. Just because a product is free does not mean it is not any good. When searching for personal finance software try free first.
Methodology: How Did I Find the Best Personal Finance Programs?
I started looking around online for recommended personal finance software. I looked at several different sites and reviews. Here were three that I enjoyed:
- Consumerist – What the best personal finance software?
- Christian Personal Finance – What’s the best personal finance software?
- Frugal Dad – Best Personal Finance Software
But one of my first stops was the most beneficial – Get Rich Slowly. I read JD Roths’ post on the best personal finance programs. The article was good, but I’m found a gold mine in the comments sections. There was 230 comments where some people suggested their favorite finance programs (not all suggested their favorite software).
The thing I like about the comments is they are real people who have no incentive to promote a product (except of course the developers and employees who left comments).
I did more searching, but the comments helped me find the best personal finance software.
This post includes affiliate links, please see our ad policy.
Anyone have any favorite personal finance programs they can recommend? Be sure you let us know if it is a desktop product or web based.
More Great Articles:
- 88 Best Personal Finance Books: As Recommended by Personal Finance Bloggers
- How To Make Your First Budget
- How To File Federal Taxes Online For Free
- How to Budget In Multiple Foreign Currencies
- Moneydance 2010 Personal Finance Software Review
- YNAB Review (You Need A Budget 3) | Finance Software Review
 |
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I actually love mint.com! It works well for everyone I know who uses it. I’m going to look into the MoneyWell for Macs…
.-= lencib: Falling into Favor´s last blog ..A Dwelling Place for the Almighty =-.
What about Green Sherpa? It’s not free ($8/month ) but you get a lot of added features that you don’t get with free sites like Mint, such as a cash flow feature and synced communication with other users.
They also have a great blog. I definitely recommend checking it out!
http://blog.greensherpa.com/index.php/personal-finance/your-financial-map/
@Allison. I’ve never heard of Green Sherpa. It would be the most expensive product out there because even Quicken is around $80 to buy and you get it for three years. This would be $96.00 per year. Hmmm.
Thanks for the article. I’m still mourning the loss (and using) MS Money, which I found worked great for me!!! I’ve been putting off switching to quicken, but I’ll have to give Money Dance a try now.
Good post, thanks!
.-= AussiePete´s last blog ..Luke 24: The Core Gospel =-.
Craig- you can buy a subscription for a year at around 5/month. No annoying ads and they don’t sell your personal financial information like other sites like Mint do.
@Allison. I’ve never used Mint so I can can’t say anything about the ads. From what I found in a little research Mint has not sold any customer information – do you have a source that they sell information? What I read is that they have not make a public statement that they will not and that does concern some people in case Mint does decide to sell it, but honestly I don’t completly know. Does anyone know if Mint does or does not sell information – that would a serious consideration. If they do it would seem like financial suicide.
At $5 per month it would be around the same cost as PocketSmith, but would still be a more expensive product. I’m not saying that is bad as long as the product is worth the price.
@AussiePete
I used MS Money about 8 years ago, but it has been awhile. Yeah, try MoneyDance. You can try it for free and if you don’t like it then purchase Quicken.
Thanks for the review. I use quicken because MS money is no longer available. I am getting used to it, but I don’t like it as much. I think I will look into moneydance, this is my first time hearing about it.
@Broke by Choice
.
I know a lot of people are in the same situation as you. They can’t use Money anymore, but can’t find something they like. I hope MoneyDance fills the missing void
I use Mint and think it’s been wonderful.
.-= Jason @ MyMoneyMinute´s last blog ..The Yakezie Challenge Carnival #8 – Tax Day Edition! =-.
@Jason
I’ve heard a lot of good things about Mint. Thanks for letting us know it works well for you.
Has anyone tried AceMoney? I am updating to Windows 7 (home premium 64 bit so I won’t have XP compatibility) from XPpro and don’t think my quicken 2000 will work. Am also considering MoneyDance. Don’t want an online app. Thanks.
Joe,
.
I’ve personally never used AceMoney, but let’s see if a reader has. I’m surprised your Quicken 2000 is sitll working now. It is probably time for an upgrade
I am taking over the bills from my wife and have been looking for software. I have tried Mint and love what it does. It just does not do enough. You cannot input upcoming recurring bills. There are no bill reminders (except on credit cards). All it does is monitor your multiple account transactions and breaks them up into catagories. If all you want to do is monitor your spending, then it is great. If you want anymore functionality then you need something else.
I have also recently signed up for a free trial of Mvelopes, the Crown financial ministries version. What do you think of it?
@Winston
I’ve never used Mvelopes. The main advantage of a product like You Need A Budget, Moneydance, and (Quicken – sort of) is that you don’t have an ongoing monthly charge. If you used a product for 3 years. Just tak the monthly cost. It looks like a 2 year subscription is $6 per month. That means over two years you pay $144. Personally, I’d rather pay 39.99 for Moneydance.
Here is a good Mvelopes review http://www.christianpf.com/mvelopes-personal-budgeting-review/.
I’am currently using Flair Finance personal finance management software, I quickly swallow it ). http://flairfinance.com/
{ 4 trackbacks }