With MS Money now out of the personal finance software market (it’s been discontinued for good as of last month), we recently wrote about some options you can use in its place. You can check out this article I’ve written on budgeting tools and software products that can serve as alternatives to Microsoft Money. Or you may want to take up the offer of some of MS Money’s competitors who have announced discounts and sales on their desktop products for a limited time.
With MS Money Discontinued, Budget Planners and Tools Are On Sale
Update: The YNAB sale is over, but the software can be purchased at the regular price. Also, please check the Quicken site as specified below to see if the sale is still ongoing.
Quicken Products
We already pointed out that there’s an ongoing Quicken download sale going on right now both at Amazon and at the Quicken site, where you’ll receive at least $20 off the regular prices of Intuit’s products (Quicken Online is always FREE).
YNAB (You Need A Budget)
Another popular desktop budget planner is currently being offered at a price of $49.95. The YNAB (You Need A Budget) personal budget software is one of our favorite tools for expense management and budgeting, and is known to be pretty effective with helping you reduce your debt.
YNAB uses a built in methodology that encourages you to build a savings buffer pretty easily; it’s a proactive tool with features that support short and long term budget planning. You can check out what this tool can do for you by going through this tour. One more thing to note: YNAB is only available on Windows, but can be made to run in an emulator if you’re using other platforms.
Quick Features (just a sample of what you’ll see):
- Automatically import data from your bank accounts.
- Categorize your savings into buckets using features that support envelope budgeting.
- Schedule recurring transactions easily.
YNAB Extras:
- Try it for free; you can download a 15 day free trial.
- Check out how the YNAB methodology actually works to help you manage your money more successfully.
- There’s a community that’s built around the use of this tool. Visit the YNAB forums.
- There’s also a Quick Start Guide, online video tutorials, YNAB live coaching classes (!) and a User Manual. Check their support page for all the materials you need.
- There’s a 60 day return guarantee.
- Get 5 free bonus spreadsheets plus a free copy of the e-book called “The YNAB Way”.
YNAB News and Updates
In other news, YNAB will be discontinuing their YNAB Basic version, which is based on Excel, and will only be supporting it throughout the rest of this year. But you may still purchase this version if you so wish (it’s $24.95). Those who want to upgrade from Basic to YNAB Pro will be eligible for a 50% upgrade discount, just use the site’s contact form for this request. I also cheered the news that the YNAB folks are developing a new version of their application called YNAB 3, using Adobe AIR, which will allow it to run on both the Windows and Mac platforms.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Are there many differences between Quicken online and desktop version? Why is the online version free?
Manshu,
Typically, desktop versions of products are more feature-rich — that’s my experience at least. Browser based applications are never as slick nor as quick as desktop programs of the same vein. I speak as a former application engineer giving an opinion.
Yes, that’s probably not the answer you were looking for. I will need to make a more detailed comparison sometime to give you the proper response, but the Quicken web site does have more info on this.
Quicken Online is only accessible online. It has somewhat limited functionality compared to the desktop version. I think you can find a good review of the differences at Quicken’s site.
Some other options for budgeting and tracking spending are mint.com which is free. You can also use Excel to track it if you are familiar with it. There are some other free options that provide different functionality.
There are a few online budget planning websites out there, most of which are free. I particularly like budget-planner.co.uk.
The benefit of using an online version is that you can update it from wherever you are that has an internet connection rather than having to wait to get home to update.
Hi, Just popped over from EldercareABC’s blog carnival. Thanks for the updates on all these options and sales for working on budgets. Sounds like they could be great ways to save money and time for those providing senior home care for aging parents.