Quicken and Money: Pre-Internet Artifacts?

David Einstein of the San Francisco Chronicle recently referred to Quicken and Microsoft Money as "artifacts from the pre-Internet world" in his Computing Q&A column. That remark gave me a chuckle, since I don't see either Quicken or Microsoft Money as artifacts...suffering from feature bloat maybe, but not necessarily outdated.

Mr. Einstein's characterization of Money and Quicken was part of a response to a question from someone who just needed to balance a checkbook and track credit card accounts. Quicken and Microsoft Money are overkill for this purpose, and Mr. Einstein suggested using online banking while monitoring accounts from the websites of the financial institutions that issued the accounts.

This works, but why go to a variety of web sites when you can have access to all your accounts in one place? ClearCheckbook would work well, or use Mint.com to have accounts automatically updated every night. If you don't want to go online to manage your financial accounts, opt for the checkbook register and other free or inexpensive spreadsheets from It's Your Money.