Find Personal Finance Software with Just the Basics

Are you interested in using personal finance software, but you tried it before or saw someone else using it and the features overwhelmed you? Don't give up on financial software, it need not be big and scary!

There are two approaches to choosing financial software that will meet your basic personal finance needs:

• Buy financial software that has more than just basic features, but that still is not the most fully-featured software. Then simply ignore the features you do not use, but those features will be there for you if your personal finance tracking needs grow. Moneydance (Mac/Windows/Linux) or Quicken Deluxe (Windows/Mac) would be good options.

• Start off with basic personal finance software like Money Essentials (Windows) with features to track accounts, create budgets, do online updates and other basic personal finance operations. Or try ClearCheckbook (Windows/Mac/Linux with Firefox), which is free online personal finance software with some awesome "extras" for your Google Homepage, Mac Dashboard, and cell phone. However, those who want to keep their financial software very simple will not ever see these features if they are not downloaded.

Money Essentials and Moneydance have free trials, Quicken has a no-questions-asked 90-day return policy and ClearCheckbook is free all the time (just delete your account if you decide not to use it). To investigate other basic personal finance software, read End the Search for Basic Personal Finance Software for help with features you need to look for.

• Quicken Review
• Money Essentials Review
• Moneydance Review
• ClearCheckbook Review

Do you enjoy using basic personal finance software that is not mentioned here? Please share your experience in the comments.

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