Now that my wife has stopped working to stay at home with our boys, it's become apparent that we need a budget. Our income has essentially been cut in half, at the same time we've added formula, diapers, clothes and medical expenses. So, the question has become, How can I effectively keep track of what's coming in and what's going out?
So instinctively, I sat down at my laptop and opened up my rarely used copy of Quicken2010, and immediately ran into two problems. The first, which I predicted, was an inability to remember the Password Vault password. Without this password, I couldn't update our accounts without searching through piles of papers to find the password for each individual account. After multiple failed attempts, and a restart of the program, I ran into the second problem. A notice popped up telling me that unless I updated to Quicken2013, I will not be able to sync my accounts after April - regardless of whether or not I am able to remember, or locate any of the passwords.
I have always defaulted to Quicken because it worked really well for me the first time I used it... almost a decade ago. However, my disenchantment with the program began when I loaded it onto my Macbook and discovered how user unfriendly it could be. Of course this didn't stop me from purchasing a later version for my wife's PC laptop. Which I used less than a dozen times over the course of 3 years.
Now seemed like the perfect time to read some online reviews to figure out if Quicken is really the best budgeting software available for my needs. After reading many reviews, I decided to give You Need A Budget a test drive. And, why not? They offer a 34 day free trial, have an iPhone app, and a few free tutorials on how to better manage my money. So I signed up for the 9 day email tutorial, and downloaded the 34 day free trial.
The 4 tenants of the software are simple and apparently easy to follow, if you have the patience to work towards following the "Rules." #1 Give every dollar a job. #2 Save for a rainy day. #3 Roll with the punches. #4 Live on last month's income. You can read more about them here, but basically the idea is this: #1 Allocate every dollar that comes in or goes out to a specific item in your budget, so you are accounting for everything that comes in and everything that goes out. #2 If there are big ticket items that you'll need to purchase or pay for in the future, start setting aside money ahead of time so you can pay for them when the time comes (insurance, gifts, etc). #3 If you don't stick to your budget, take a little from one bucket and put it in another, but don't sweat it, or get down on yourself. #4 Work towards paying this month's bills with last month's money so you have a cushion. In the end, the rules give living on a budget a pretty positive spin.
I'm only 14 days into the 34 day trial, but putting all of our bills and income into a user friendly budget program has already allowed us to have some good budget conversations in our home. Most importantly, it's allowed me to keep track of what's coming in and what's going out. We'll see over the next few days if it does this effectively, efficiently, and most importantly, if it's user-friendly enough that I can use it every day and justify the $60 price tag that I now have to budget.
