A web site to follow.......

[araucano]

Hi:
Is there a web site to follow my expenses in a safe way?or do I have to
purchase a quickens software?Your opinions about pro and con are much appreciated!araucano.........

[lthrnk]

We use Rv'ers Notebook and find it gives us all we need to follow our expenses and travels. Easy to use and inexpensive to buy.

[StevePav]

Quick Books has a free, scaled down version of their software called Simple Start (available for download on their website). This software can help you track expenses and is designed to give you a feeling for Quick Books hoping that you will buy the full version of their product.

Steve

[bsavage]

As I used to do the bookeeping for my husband's company on quickbooks, if you need something simple and easy to track expenses, manage bank accounts, etc., I cannot say strongly enough that quickbooks is not simple and easy. It is difficult and complicated. (And expensive!) For our business and household bookeeping, I now use Microsoft Money Plus... not very expensive and pretty user friendly, IMHO.

Brenda, of...

[chasfm11]

Like many subjects, tracking expenses means different things to different people. Knowing exactly why you want to track them might help to answer your questions. Let me give you some examples:
1. In the very early days of personal computers, there was no Quicken or other program. I used a spreadsheet to record daily expenses. I had been using a paper 12 column book before that. What I was trying to do was to collect my expenses in categories so that I could compare them to my budget
2. In this day of identify theft, I routinely sign on to the websites of the financial institutions that I work with, checking daily expenses. I've found problems with a couple of accounts between statements and have been able to take immediate corrective actions. I'm also satisfied that no one else is attempting to use those accounts.

Here are some thoughts.
1. Tracking expenses in a program like Quicken (I use it now) can be tedious. I've been posting my personal expenses for for 30 years and have acquired the discipline to do it consistently. More sophisticated programs like Quicken have "type ahead" features so you only need a few key strokes before the program recognizes the merchant that want and pre-fills the fields from your last transaction with that merchant. To really track your expenses against a budget in Quicken, it will take you some time to set that budget up properly. Some folks just aren't that interested.
2. Bank websites offer secure access from almost any computer or setup. Some worry about wireless transactions being intercepted. I don't. It is possible to hack wireless but those with that kind of talent are going to try to apply it to situations that will yield them better results. My bank offers yearly summaries by type of purchase (they can tell clothing merchants from the places that I buy fuel). If I didn't use Quicken, I might be tempted to just go with the reports that they provide.
3. The key factors are:
- are you interested in looking at individual transactions in your history?
- do you want to work towards a budget that you set to keep a limit on what you spend? If so, how flexible or sophisticated do you want your budget to be?
- is one of your main interests trying to protect your accounts from fraud?