What is Digg?45 Comments
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+23"Yodlee. This is a slick solution. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m severely tempted ...."
WTF, if you expect me to read your lame-ass blog at least test the software before announcing it's a 'Great Alternative'
It's almost like my Starcraft comment last week about how much I 'hate Starcraft even though I've never played it'. Except I was joking and this guy is (apparently) serious. - nicolaihel, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7RTFM. Click on the link provided in the article.
- ptFoe, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Money Manager Ex is quite good, simple to use and powerful too.
Open Source too,
Available for Windows & Linux.
DEB files for Ubuntu.
http://www.thezeal.com/software/index.php?Money_Manager_Ex - nicolaihel, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7I'm a fan of the spreadsheets myself. Keep it simple.
- fatdog789, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Not going to happen. The only thing worse than #1b (Google Spreadsheets) are the remaining online entries. Why the hell would I let an unknown entity with all of my financial data, the passwords to my accounts, and the power to abuse my money?
I won't even trust Google with the numbers, and they're still reasonably trustworthy on privacy issues. - jasz, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5GNU Cash FTW :)
- digitalmob, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4@captaingrapes
Regardless of whether they store passwords or not, they still have access to *all* of the financial data that would be entered. And also, why should I trust X just because he says "X does not store your passwords. You can trust X." - ogmak, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I strongly reccomend Gnu Cash. The most important aspect of Quicken and MS Money is the "import" function. there are so many personal finance programs out there, but only a handful with the import function. I think Gnu Cash does a fine job of doing this.
- frontbrain, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I just recently switched from GNUCash to KMyMoney (both on linux). There are things I like better about each, but KMyMoney's interface is nice, and in the CVS version they are working on adding some basic budgeting, so that will be cool. I know GNUCash has this already, but there was something I didn't like about it, like a lack of reports or I couldn't find them or something, don't quite remember, but I ended up using a spreadsheet for budgets.
- captaingrapes, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3If you went to the sites and read their FAQs you would see how they are secure enough and dont actually store your passwords to the accounts.
- collinong, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3oops, found it. amazingly small link at the bottom of the page.
- spiffyfitz, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4"Quicken Premiere! I hope you saved the receipt!!"
"Why, you want to return it?"
"No! I want it deducted!"
-AD - mudfly, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3sbrown, You are a sick bastard.
- ronsii, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2How is excel free??? and since you have to have excel to use an excel spreadsheet... personally I would use a regular spreadsheet that you can open on openoffice or another free alternative.
- scifimax, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Any other apps for Mac besides Cash box that someone can recommend?
Besides moneydance/quicken... - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1MS Money, the full version, came preinstalled on my dell. It is the 2004 version but I'm still using it. It warned me a few times that my online subscription was running out and then it stopped working. So instead I just imported everything from files. However, now the online import feature is working again. {shrug}
One thing I don't like is that the software does not handle transfers between accounts well. I usually transfer money from my checking right to my credit card and it winds up getting booked twice in the software. I don't know that anything can be done to fix that short of forcing all the financial institutions to use the same exact coding. I have to fix it manually every time. It also could never electronically import my TIAA-CREF accounts properly...dunno why. I do like the ability to categorize every expenditure. It lets me look at what I spend per category and I'm sometimes surprised. One expense that was WAY bigger than I thought it would be was my car. All added up the expense last year was well over $8,000. - rockmanac, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Yes.. But do any of those solutions have the ability to automatically download my statements into them from my bank like Quicken can?
-A - stormmind, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I tryed moneydance and was surprised to find the same unuserfriendly interface most other budget/accounting software has. The first screen looks nice, but as soon as you need to enter a budget or whatever, it just so unconvenient. So far nothing beets Google sheets, but I think I'll write my own app in the summer.
- BluKnight, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1I've tried a few pay/free programs but found that MS Money suites me best. However, I wait until tax season when it comes bundled free after MIR. MIRs haven't failed me yet.
- collinong, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1I went to the yodlee site and only found soulutions that financial institutions could incorporate into their own sites, not anything offered directly to consumers. Did anybody find a direct offering?
- antitab, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2Cashbox for the Mac is pretty nice.
http://www.fadingred.org/cashbox/ - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1umm... a spreadsheet program?
- satanguy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1umm excel isn't free...open office calculator however...
- jus1haz2, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Wow thats sucks for the kids...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin_type_ichthyosis
Its apparently a real - sarora529, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Yodlee is awesome because you can monitor all your accounts and even pay bills. It also gives you an expense analysis to show you where you are spending your money. The best part is that you can access it from anywhere and don't have to upgrade. It's not that well advertised but you can sign up at the link below
http://moneycenter.yodlee.com - ceusa, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0That Yodlee online application is a great online personal finance solution! I've been using it for a few weeks now and it is definitely "slick".
- jimejim, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0I've been trying to find some alternatives to quicken and money lately also, and I just installed the windows version of GnuCash and it's still a bit buggy. After using it for a bit, I think has a lot of potential, but really needs to deal with some basic user interface annoyances that slow me down when working with it.
1) The qif import interface is kind of lacking. It should be easier to set categories and match up transactions on existing accounts. A majority of my time is usually spent categorizing things so I can generate reports and know where my money is going. Some time making that more efficient and productive would be nice.
2) The ledger doesn't let you select multiple transactions at the same time (for example, holding down ctrl or shift keys to perform actions on multiple lines):
a) to delete multiple transactions
b) to set the account (categories) on multiple transactions
3) the reporting doesn't really work too well yet. It crashed on me a few times also.
4) maybe I'm missing something, but the online banking portion (aqbanking) didn't work for me. Perhaps I need to install it separately, but I have to explore that a bit more.
I do think that once they get some of these issues taken care of and clean up the interface a bit, it will be a great solution though. I just don't feel comfortable using it yet.
I also need to go file some bug reports and feature requests now. :) - Iwantawii, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Yodlee is great. I use my gmail account for it and set my homepage to www.google.com/ig
So whenever there's a bill, large withdrawl/deposit, or other notification it's right there on my homepage. - vramasamy, on 02/11/2009, -0/+0Try Money Manager EX for Mac. Still an experimental build though. http://www.codelathe.com
- CallMeOrlando, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Excellent find. Thanks for sharing it.
- seletit, on 12/09/2008, -0/+0Try Simple Home Budget at http://www.home-budget-software.com - Free and Full versions. We tried few personal finance applications to family use and decided to build one ourselves.
- sremick, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Mail-in rebates almost always fail me. Motorola successfully scammed me out of a $50 one long ago I didn't keep good enough records on to fight back. Just did another... it wasn't part of my buying decision, but I bought the monitor anyway and decided I'd try for the mail-in rebate.
Sure enough, like all other rebates, once again they try to deny it by saying it was "invalid"... this time due to a bad UPC and bad postmark date. Except this time I DID keep records of everything. I sent them a stern email last night telling them point-blank to not even think about trying to scam this customer... I had copies of everything, could prove them wrong, and unless I heard from them in 48 hours I'd be going straight to the state's attorney general with a report of their consumer fraud.
I got an email first thing this morning saying they had "updated" my rebate and I'd be getting my check in a few weeks. A victory maybe, but I'm not celebrating until I have the check in-hand.
Even though I might have won this time, the few successes only by those willing to fight to the death don't make up for the overall scam that rebates are. The entire thing should be banned, in my opinion. It is fraud and designed only to cheat the consumer. If they truly didn't intend on screwing people over, they'd be willing to offer the discount up-front without 100 hoops to jump through and a 6-8 week wait. - kernelhappy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1I recently started using Quicken and I'm quite disappointed to this point, luckily I have 60 days to return it. Among my nitpicks are; when downloading transactions it won't show pending transactions even though that data is available to it, it does a poor job of classifying transactions (a purchase from a store with the word GROCERY sometimes comes up as a Utility), it doesn't differentiate a purchase and a payment to a credit card so it when you bring up a report it looks like I spent the same dollar twice, it does not have provisions to track my rewards points and doesn't tell me the due date or the minimum due for a card or bill. In all fairness these things for the most part can be dealt with (you can set up renaming rules, and manual recurring events, modify reports), but why should I have to do so much to do something to meet my reasonable expectations especially when a free web offering does them already.
I probably wouldn't be as critical if "My Portfolio" from bank of america, had similar problems, but it doesn't. While not as robust, BoA's My Portfolio service, which is provided by Yodlee, does a much better job of guessing at transaction categories (which shows that even if the merchant code is wrong, they can somehow figure out that Wegman's Groceries, is a grocery store, but Quicken can't), shows my due dates and minimums, displays everything more logically, etc. They've been pushing Quicken for over a decade now, why is it so behind? - mt066, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1I never used that Quicken software. They always bundle it with PC's in demo form or something. Once you get over the feeling of "Cool! I can make a pie chart of my money!" there's not it has to offer that spreadsheet software doesn't already do.
- alsowoldguy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0Different strokes for different folks. A spreadsheet is really useless to me. These are activities I regularly use on Quicken:
- Monthly Budgets: Nice budgeting tool that (for example) shows me how much I have actually been spending on average per month so my budget is realistic
- Acct Downloads: Credit cards, banks, investments. The transactions downloaded are instantly categorized. Categories aren't perfect, but if I don't have to re-cat half, that's great.
- Savings Goals: Saving up for a new flat screen? I can create a virtual account within my checking account, put a bit of money away each month in that account until I hit my goal.
- Easy Answers: It's REALLY simple to report on "How much did I spend over the last 90 days on Dining Out" or "How much did I pay to XYZ Corp this year"?
- Checking Reconciliation takes 2 minutes, max 90% of the time. Anything longer is user error, i.e. me screwing up.
- Investment Performance: I can see how things are going by security or by investment account. Buys, sells, dividends are all taken into account.
- Alerts: This is a HUGE one. Quicken reminds me that I usually pay a bill to XYZ in the upcoming week - saves my butt more than I care to admit!
- Loan tracking, transaction splits, yadda yadda, and I could go on and on.
That's why I'm sticking with Quicken - it's not perfect - my god it's not perfect, but there's nothing out there that can make me switch. I do use Deluxe 2005. The yearly upgrade cycle is a joke. I used to do every other year, but I'll wait for 2008 this time around. - rockefeller, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1@ jus1haz2
"Don't do that" - jus1haz2, on 10/11/2007, -5/+3"Rock the cash box, rock the cash box" :P
- LordSkywalker, on 10/11/2007, -8/+5I like Quick Basic. It's all I need, and it's under $30.
- spvo, on 10/11/2007, -6/+2Its not free, but Money Dance, www.moneydance.com, is vastly superior to anything he suggests. Plus its written in java, so it works on multiple platforms.
- batteries, on 10/11/2007, -4/+0Gnu Cash for Windows? I still haven't seen it for Windows as this article is claiming...
- ristoman, on 10/11/2007, -5/+1I got an awesome alternative that isn't mentioned in TFA:
http://thepiratebay.org - corporalclegg24, on 10/11/2007, -11/+4Money is for communists.
- Cwo655321, on 10/11/2007, -9/+1none if which come with any sort of guarantee.
- LoraxLorax, on 10/11/2007, -10/+1I'm a big fan of Visual Basic. It's more than I need for under $300
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