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Microsoft Personal Finance Software

Simple Personal Finance Checklist - Consider yourself as a Business

Why would you not consider yourself a business of ONE person? Or your family as a business of 3 or more people? Well that is exactly what you are - "Me Incorporated", "I Inc", "We Incorporated". You truly must consider yourself a small family business. Like any business you have ongoing expenses (mortgage, rent, utilities, groceries), revenue (salary and other income) and major capital expenditures (house, vehicle, vacations, renovations).

Like any good 'household business', you need to do some planning. Set out a budget for the year, track your expenditures and retained earnings (savings). Yes, all of this looks, feels and is exactly like a well run business. On My Gosh! Don't rush out and buy an accounting package to run your household. And no need to take a crash course on accounting or bookkeeping. You can accomplish all your financial tracking and planning requirements with some paper or by using a simple template with your favorite spreadsheet package - Microsoft Excel or even with Open Office.

Just like a well run business, your household budget and tracking your spending is best served using a visible record of events; namely, financial records, bank or check register. It is just like tracking your road trip progress using a map. If you know where you are now, then you will have some idea when you will arrive at your destination. In life, money or finances allows you to get to your personal destinations or dreams. A visible financial roadmap of your 'Me Incorporated' finances, mapping your progress, seems logical.

Running your 'Household Business', like corporate business, requires a few processes to keep track of your finances:

1) Establish a yearly and monthly household budget. Consider all your expenses - weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly outlays of money. You will be surprised at the length of this list and all the places you spend your money.

2) Track monthly your actually spending and income against the budget you established in step 1. This will help you see the 'peaks and valleys' of spending or seasonality aspect of your expenses. Over time, you will come to know these expense 'peaks and valleys' and this will help you maintain a positive cash flow. Bottom line: have money in the bank to pay all your expenses and still have some left over (retained earnings). Your single biggest challenge in running any household (or business) is always having enough money in the bank to pay the bills; especially, the unexpected ones. Having a buffer of savings will help with these 'peaks' in expenses.

3) Track all your bank account activity. Track and enter in your Bank or Check Register every deposit, every electronic (ATM, web, PayPal, debit machine) transaction and every analog (check, money order) withdrawal. And reconcile your bank statement every month. Know exactly how much money you have available in your bank account(s).

4) Especially track your spending through credit cards and lines of credit. These are potentially the 'run away' expenses. Remember only once a month do you see the visible record of your credit card spending. Compound that with the fact that most people have more than one credit card. This can easily result in multiple 'spending surprises' each month. Be diligent in tracking your use of credit card transactions. Breakdown the credit card expenses into their respective budget items - gas, groceries, clothing, entertainment, etc. This will help you separate normal household expenditures from other shopping incidentals. You will come to see your spending patterns and can now make adjustments. Just like your bank account, reconcile your credit card statement every month.

All this personal bookkeeping every month can be done with pen and paper or set up a personal finance and budgeting template using your favorite spreadsheet software. Using an electronic spreadsheet allows for all of the mundane calculations to be processed automatically, reducing monthly reconciliations to a simple 5-10 minute endeavour. Whether you choose an analog or digital approach to your personal finance bookkeeping, these visible records are the most effective way to plan and control your personal finances and reduce one of the major stress points in your life - Your Financial Health.

About the Author

Carl Chesal is a business and channel development consultant, trainer, internet marketer and professional photographer. He operates BizFare Enterprise Inc, providing business development, marketing, and internet marketing services. Bizfare Enterprise also operates a number of secure on-line shopping sites.

Looking for personal finance software compatible with Microsoft Vista?

I'm struggling to find any home/personal finance software for managing my money. My computer operates on Windows Vista (with the service packs) and am wondering whether anyone can recommend any other software that I can use.

I put a copy of MS Money that came with XP, and it works fine.
Since I am not using the XP installation, this is still legal.

However I also dual boot my vista machine with Ubuntu Linux, a free operating system, and I use the GNUCASH program that comes free with Ubuntu.
Because Ubuntu also comes with a whole range of free office applications, and programming tools, I find working with Ubuntu and its open source software a liberating experience.

Microsoft Personal Finance Software
Overview of Quicken 2010 Personal Finance Software

Personal Finance Budgeting Software-Help Automatically Manage Your Finances

Budgeting is required everywhere to meet out the expenses and to know about the expenditures. It is a perfect tool to manage and keep all the records. Earlier days budgeting was a very tedious job, you will have to keep the hand written accounts for your expenses and income. To match the account at the end was really very hard. Now as per the requirements money budgeting software are available, which has made the process of budgeting very convenient and easy. This can be considered as a perfect tool for finance management.

Especially for the businesses these software are a boon, which gives a clear picture about their finance and with the help of these they can get the correct results and figures. There are various kinds of personal finance budgeting software that are available as per the likings and the function requirement one can choose best personal budget software. These Software types include Quicken Premier 2009, Microsoft Money, Mvelopes Personal Budgeting System and Mint.com. Among these types some are the online software tools.

This money budgeting software tracks every aspects of the finance like income, expenses, real estate and your investments. It can calculate the bonuses, incentives and the most important tax calculation. Your best personal budget software can minimize the risk of any mistakes in the accounts. All the things will be clearly mentioned in this software you can cross check it very easily. Out flow and inflow of the money can captured easily with this software. This software is very easy to use and easy way to control over the finance. One can learn it very easily and quickly.

About the Author

Torri Andrews has been an internet shopper for many years. She does all of her shopping online and enjoys writing reviews about products and services and purchases.

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Multimedia Financial Accounting $0.89 A Multimedia Financial Accounting Resource!  Product Information Financial Accounting includes complete coverage of nine key areas of financial accounting, easy to follow, self-help tutorials in 40 key topic areas, and over 250 real-world exercises with solutions. Product Features Financial Statements Entries and Methodology Entries and Classification Sales an...

QuickBooks Pro 2012 $126.99 QuickBooks Pro 2012 lets you organize your business finances all in one place so you can quickly find the information that you need. Easily create invoices and track your sales and expenses - and get reliable records at tax time. QuickBooks Pro 2012 can be set up in minutes and is easy to learn and use. Save time and get organized with the tools of QuickBooks Pro that make your everyday business t...

Quicken Deluxe 2012 [Download] $34.38 Quicken Deluxe Personal Finance Software Set goals and manage your finances: Organizes all your accounts - bank, credit card, investments, loans, retirement accounts - all in one placeSafely and securely imports all of your financial information so you don't have to enter them manuallyAutomatically categorizes expenses so you can see where you're spendingHelps you create a budget and tracks your ...

Quicken Deluxe 2012 $32.49 Product InformationQuicken Deluxe Personal Finance Software helps you set goals and manage your finances so you can save and plan for tomorrowProduct FeaturesOrganizes your bank credit card investment accounts in one placeAutomatically categorizes expenses so you can see where you're spendingHelps you create a budget and tracks your progress against itAlerts you to upcoming billsPersonal-finance s...

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NeatReceipts Scanner and Software for Expense Management and Reporting $209.95 ...

QuickBooks for Mac 2012 $129.99 The Intuit QuickBooks 2012 for Mac (1-User) is accounting software for Apple Macintosh computers that helps you save time and get organized. Built specifically for the Mac OS, this user-friendly software looks and works in a way that will be familiar to you. Organize all your finances in one place so you can quickly find what you need. Create professional-looking invoices and track sales and expen...

Microsoft Personal Finance Software