money management alternatives to mint.com

**gmarie** · 08-28-2011, 03:59 PM

Ok, so I gave mint.com a try and I absolutely hate it. There are several instances where information I have updated has reverted back, and I just don't find it reliable.

I miss Microsoft Money!

What are my options for money management these days? I don't necessarily care if it's online or a program on my computer, or if I have to pay for it. I just want something that is reliable and I need to be able to enter cash transactions.

I do have a free version of quicken through my bank, but I can't enter cash transactions so it doesn't work for me.

Any suggestions?

**Birdie** · 08-28-2011, 04:29 PM

I still use Microsoft Money on my laptop. I update manually since the download function is gone. I've used it for so long, I couldn't see any reason why I should change when MS quit updating it.

**gmarie** · 08-28-2011, 04:44 PM

I don't have it on my computer anymore so that is not an option. but I really did love it! It is what I used back in 2003 when I decided to be responsible about money for the first time!

**gmarie** · 08-28-2011, 04:52 PM

One problem with mint is if you have two similar transactions in one day, it deletes one thinking it is a duplicate. It should not be deleting anything without the user looking at it first!

**napswithkats** · 08-28-2011, 05:22 PM

We use :

Moneydance® 2011 - Personal Finance Manager for Mac, Windows, and Linux

**gmarie** · 08-28-2011, 05:52 PM

Thank you -how long have you been using it? Have you had any problems with it?

**Moonblossom** · 08-29-2011, 02:14 PM

We use YNAB @ Personal Budget Software - Finance Software for Windows, Mac & Linux works great for us.

~Moon

**BobbyDee** · 08-29-2011, 02:48 PM

Mint is great for personal finance noobs; if you've never set up a budget in your life Mint is great for stuff like checking to see what you spend money on every month.

I agree that there are some basic things that Mint.com is lacking:

1. Can't pay bills online.
2. No way to set up app to pay bills (although you can set up a reminder).

**Telephus44** · 08-29-2011, 03:08 PM

I use Quicken - but I have had a lot of issues with the automatic updates, which was the main reason I gave up MS Money. I liked it A LOT better than Quicken, but I also rely very heavily on downloaded transactions for my banking and for my portfolio.

If you PM me, I'll send you my MS Money CD and you can install it.

**low-1** · 08-29-2011, 04:57 PM

I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I found and downloaded GNUCash, it's a freeware/opensource alternative to Quicken/MS Money. It's from the same platform as GIMP, the free alternative to Photoshop. I haven't really had a chance to play around with it, but it seems very functional and can import/export quicken data.

**gmarie** · 08-29-2011, 07:09 PM

Originally Posted by Telephus44

I use Quicken - but I have had a lot of issues with the automatic updates, which was the main reason I gave up MS Money. I liked it A LOT better than Quicken, but I also rely very heavily on downloaded transactions for my banking and for my portfolio.

If you PM me, I'll send you my MS Money CD and you can install it.

Thank you, that is very nice of you! I am just a little wary of using MS money since it is no longer supported...

I see that I can buy Home/Business Version of Quicken on Amazon for $50. (and I happen to have a gift certificate it would be free!)

But, reading the reviews, I am a little skeptical...
but it sounds like a lot of the reviewers were just annoyed they wasted money on the upgrade.

What version of Quicken are you using? What issue are you having with the updates? How did you resolve it?

Again, I realizing that Mint is deleting a lot of my transactions thinking they are duplicates. Does this happen on Quicken?

I assume you can enter cash transactions in the paid version of Quicken?

**gmarie** · 08-29-2011, 07:11 PM

I'm also skeptical of using all of these new online money management programs. They all sound really cool, but there are just so many of them now, how do you they are really safe?

**Telephus44** · 08-30-2011, 10:17 AM

The issues I'm having with Quicken updates is that it will stop updating, but not give you an error message. For example, I download my credit card transactions. So I'll update it, and no transactions download. I think to myself, great, we didn't spend any money for the last few days! Go us! And then when I get my statement, I find that yes, we did spend money - it just didn't get downloaded. I have to turn the automatic updates off and then set them back up again to get them to reset. This didn't happen until about month 5 of using it, but I've had this happen 3 times since then. It bothers me because I like having a running total of the CC balance - not get surprized at the end of the month when the bill is higher than I thought. (Don't worry, we pay it off in full every month - it's just how we run our finances).

There's a few other little quicks I don't like about Quicken either.

1. It took me several months to figure out a hack to get the company match on a Roth 401K. However, after I got it to work, I now have a $0.00 transaction in each paycheck that shows up as an "uncatergorized transaction" which irks me.

2. We have 4 accounts at ING, but it only updates the 2 that have only my name on it. I have a joint account with DH and a custodial account for DS, and those won't update. Since they are savings accounts there isn't much activity so I just go in and update them manually, but it still irks me.

I'm not sure what you mean by cash transactions - I put in money I take out at the ATM, but I don't track that. DH does track his cash spending, but he does it by creating an account called "Wallet" - when he takes $20 out of the ATM, he does it as a transfer from checking to "Wallet" - and then manually enters what he spends his cash on.

**daylily** · 08-30-2011, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by low-1

I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I found and downloaded GNUCash, it's a freeware/opensource alternative to Quicken/MS Money. It's from the same platform as GIMP, the free alternative to Photoshop. I haven't really had a chance to play around with it, but it seems very functional and can import/export quicken data.

We use GNUCash and have for several years. I like it and it has lots of neat features.

**Nishu** · 08-30-2011, 05:57 PM

Originally Posted by BobbyDee

Mint is great for personal finance noobs; if you've never set up a budget in your life Mint is great for stuff like checking to see what you spend money on every month.

I agree that there are some basic things that Mint.com is lacking:

1. Can't pay bills online.
2. No way to set up app to pay bills (although you can set up a reminder).

Mint.com is set up so that you can't actually interact with your money from the mint website. All you can do is read about it. I think they intentionally designed it that way for safety, so it's actually a big plus.

My bank has started allowing you to add outside accounts so you can track them like mint does. It's still not as good as the mint site though.