Quicken is a great product I used to use it all the time but I never did anything beyond the basics of entering my purchases and watch my spending categories, so I decided to stop paying for it. I've since found www.clearcheckbook.com Its a nice site and does everything I want it to do, it breaks down the spending categories so you can see where your money is going it also does charts. It does budgets as well and can email you reminders as you aproach/cross the limits. Another one that I stumbled across is www.mint.com . This one is for the lazy person. You plug in your bank info and it will automatically pull in all your spending and categorize it for you. I didn't like the idea of someone else having my bank info so I'm sticking with clearcheckbook.com. Best of all they are both free and completely web based so you have access to them from anywhere.
If you switch to Bank of America and use their Online Banking feature - it automatically divides up your expenses (via check, check card) into categories to automatically track your spending... new feature recently added fyi...
i'm just used to putting time warner on there. anyhow, this spreadsheet isn't for budgeting perse. i just like to see where ALL my money is going after i get my net paycheck...including petty cash. RE: valero that's where i get morning crappucino.
