My Quicken Free Trial
I’ve been using Budget by Snowmint since last summer, and I like it. It lets me make pretty little envelopes and set my budget ahead of time, yadda yadda.
Every now and then, though, I get a hankering to try something new. Enter: Quicken Online.
Since the end of February, I’ve been experiencing the free trial of Quicken and here’s what I think so far:
PROS:
1. It pulls all my bank account/ING/credit card info into one neat place.
2. I can label categories of spending.
3. It creates sweet pie charts that show what percentage of my money goes where.
CONS:
1. I don’t set my budget ahead of time within the software (I use a separate Excel spreadsheet).
2. It costs $2.99/month, which isn’t much but which could add up over time.
I’m still on the fence. Can anyone talk me out of this by persuading me to a better program? I’m all ears!
Filed under budgeting, financial resources | Comments (7)Do you know your credit score?
When I applied for the apartment, the management company ran a credit check on me. The agent let me know I had a good score (760), which was kind of nice to find out. I always, always pay everything on time and always have, but I don’t really have a lot of credit. I can’t remember the last time I checked… I suspect it was a year or so ago on that Equifax site online.
Everyone can have a free credit report each year. Do you know your score?
Filed under financial resources | Comments (4)What’s Your Earliest Money Memory?
Recently, I acquired Suze Orman’s Nine Steps to Financial Freedom through paperbackswap.org. The first part of the book invites you to think back to your earliest money memory: when you were a child, did you feel worried, ashamed, desperate for money? She asks a series of questions, all intended to glean information from your past. This, she says, is key in discovering your deepest associations with finances.
What were the best presents you remember receiving as a child?
Did your friends have things you didn’t?
Did both of your parents have to work, and did your friends’ moms not have to?
Were you ashamed to bring your friends home?
Did your friends have nicer clothes, toys, etc.?
Did you hear your parents fight about money?
For me, my earliest memory, as far as I’ve been able to think back, is of being embarrassed to have a nice house. It sounds a little funny to say now, but childhood perspective is very different. My parents lived in an upper middle class neighborhood, but most of my friends from private school lived in smaller or less expensive homes. I wanted desperately to just be the same as everyone else, to blend in and not be noticed for where I lived.
When my parents built the house we live in now, random teachers would ask me how it was coming along. I mean, teachers who’d never taught me or who’d taught me a long time ago–who never talked to me otherwise–knew about the house and wanted to ask about it. This was another way I felt singled out and resented it.
What about you?
Filed under a deeper look at life, financial resources, questions | Comments (3)
