Return to Quicken

I’ve been contemplating buying Quicken 2014 Deluxe.  My last version was Quicken 2011 Deluxe.  Intuit decided they needed a new paycheck to do the exact same thing they did previously, so I can no longer download my bank information and have it automatically entered.  All manual entry if I want to do that type of thing.  I really don’t.  I manage my account well, so I know how much I have and I review it several times a week.  Note the “managed” part of the account. 

So I guess I wonder if I should repurchase it.  I’ve been out of service with Quicken since the end of April, though I slowly quit using it prior to that because the darn thing wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do.  It didn’t seem to understand the term “monthly budget”.   Telling me I’m over budget because I’ve got rent scheduled for the next year and I don’t have the money to pay Decembers rent in February is kind of stupid to me.  But that is what Quicken does.  Maybe it thinks I’m trying to prepare for apocalypse. 

So stupid.  Have they fixed any of this?  I doubt it.  But some part of me thinks I should go get it just to see if it anything is better.  I do wonder if Quicken is the best because everything else sets the bar so low.  But I digress.  Could be I’m just complaining because I feel like it.  Seems like a good thing to do.

I think the other, and real, problem is a mental problem.  When my gas account gets up high, I think of things to go off and blow it on that don’t have anything to do with vehicle maintenance.  I need to go replace my front tires and all my shocks.  But that wouldn’t be “fun” or exciting.  Buying tires is kind of like having a root canal.  I haven’t had a root canal, but I have bought tires.  It was somewhere in the “supremely boring” category.  And did I mention expensive?  Yeah, that too. 

Going back to the budget I wonder if there is really anything useful for me in Quicken that I don’t already do.  Other than categorizing things and figuring out where money goes, I don’t know.  I do yearly budgets with an Excel spreadsheet and that works fine.  Seems to work a lot better than the over complexity of Quicken.  See, Quicken operates for casual budgeters.  I’m an “every dollar on paper on purpose” budgeter.  There is no “left over” money at the end of the month.  Because I spent every single bit of it before I ever got it.

Now, sometimes that money is spent in the “blow” category.  Sometimes it’s spent on rent.  But it’s all got a name and a purpose.  I know when the bills come due and I know the generally amounts.  I know electricity and gas swap being horrible based on the season.  I know when I’m going to put money into savings and when I’m going to be short.  I always know.  Because my life is balanced off a budget of me not working a single minute of overtime.  And I always work overtime.  There is always a degree of flexibility there that allow me to do whatever I need to do.   And if I truly am short, then I’ve got $1,000 in an emergency fund to make the problem go away.  Simple.

I guess the end of this is I don’t want Quicken.  I just thought I did.  There is nothing it can provide me that I don’t already do or have.  And that $55 (or $65 or $48, depending on where you look) can easily be spent paying off debit or buying tires.