Day 2 with Quicken 2008

Today I got a little more in depth with the program. I filled out the retirement planner and debt reduction planner. I have to say I am impressed. Lets start out with the retirement planner. I went through the simple setup and just inputed all the data that was asked for. Very easy to do and does not take too much time. On my first try, it stated that with a retirement goal of 2035, I would have depleted funds by 2038 on a $20k/yr living for retirement at my current savings/income pace. What an eye-opener. I actually missed inputting a lot of information my first time through. I did not set any return rates on my investments and I also did not do reoccurring retirement deposits. On my 2nd attempt, it stated that I would run out of money by 2068 on a $30/yr living after retirement. This caused me some concern cause I always thought I would have enough for my retirement stage of life. I'm going to have to reconsider how much I can contribute to my Roth IRA's and other investment accounts. My new job offers a 401k however there is no company matching, so I will have to do some research into that.

Now the other planner I did on Quicken was the debt reduction. I was going to compare the numbers with what I am currently using which is Money Mastery. Based on Money Mastery I will be out of debt using their current payment methods in May 2009. Using Quicken, they suspect I will be out of debt if I follow their payment methods in April 2009. I found Quicken's debt reduction very simple. I did not have to input any of my accounts, it automatically grabbed it from the program itself and everything is up to date since I have it linked with my online service. It takes the same approach as Money Mastery using the snowball effect. The only difference is I can update the numbers at anytime much easier than Money Mastery and there are nice graphs and reports that I can print out.

Overall I had a good experience with these 2 planners. Once I get a steady paycheck I will do the tax planning and also the savings planner. I was going to create a budget however it automatically takes all your past info (you get to set the dates) and since I have no information (only have Sept information inputted), it did not provide an accurate budget. I will test out the budget planner during December.

So far Quicken gets an A!

Quicken 2008 Preview... Day 1

I recently got a copy of Quicken 2008 Home and Business from a good friend of mine. I've tried the trial version of MS Money 2007 and I had problems connecting to my online accounts for banks and credit cards. With Quicken 2008, I had no problems setting up all my accounts. I'm currently tracking all my bank accounts, all credit cards, investments such as IRA and stocks. I've used Quicken in the past but was not impressed and I was leaning towards MS Money more. This version may have changed my mind. Today is my first day using it so lets see if I can keep my finances in check. I do like the vista gadget of the billminder. That way I have NO excuse on ever being late on a payment again. You can get a copy at the link below using my Amazon affiliate link:

1 month has passed...

Wow, 1 month has passed since my last update. Lots of new changes going on in my life. I was recently laid off from my job last month and that's the main reason of no updates. I was on a crazy job search. 2nd of all, my child was going to head start day care which was free, but based off my income from this past year, they said I was no longer qualified. Now I will have to find a daycare. Here's the good news. I start my new job on Monday Sept 17 as an Enrollment Advisor at a college. We'll see how this all works out. I will have a significant increase in pay so let's see if I can save more and get out of debt faster. 2nd, I was able to find a program CDA which helps find daycares based off my income at a low price. Rough estimate is $15/day which comes out to about $300 per month.

Since my job loss, my debt has increased. I was averaging about $1k a month of debt deductions, however this month I gained $1k in debt because I had to resort to my savings and credit cards. I've been without a job for about a month so I've been as frugal as possible. I'll be back on track starting Monday. I did update my networthIQ and I will be updating this site more often.