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Financial Planning Software Makes a Great Gift
Gifts for Life Stage Celebrations and for Holidays

By Shelley Elmblad, About.com

Using personal financial planning software is an inexpensive option for financial planning.

Financial Planning Software Makes Great Gifts

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Having a personal financial plan is so important for a number of reasons: having sufficient financial resources for retirement years, college savings and changing insurance needs among other concerns. Many people put off seeing a financial planner to ensure their future is secure because the services provided - while valuable - are expensive and can result in sales calls from planners who want to sell you on an investment.

When you give friends and family personal finance software as a gift, you are giving a gift that truly keeps giving into the future.

Personal Financial Planning Software Options

Two great software options for do-it-yourself financial planning are eFinPLAN and Financial Fate. Financial Fate runs on Windows computers and eFinPLAN is accessed online through an Internet browser. The Firefox browser runs on Mac, Linux and Windows computers.

While the initial data entry can be time consuming, the software tells you what you need to enter. And, data entry can always be broken down into multiple short sessions. Once financial data is entered, a comprehensive report indicates whether you have a financially secure future and gives advice for saving, investing and spending alternatives to improve your financial outlook.

Do-It-Yourself Financial Planning Changes with Life

When new financial accounts are opened, a home is sold or purchased or other life changes that effect finances occur, just enter the new information into the software. The ability to do what-if analysis in the software is vital for determining how a financial decision would impact future finances.

Using Financial Fate or eFinPLAN means you do not pay for advice every time you want to make a change to your financial plan and you never get a call from a sales person pushing an investment.

Who Can You Give Financial Planning Software To?

Personal financial planning software is a gift for anyone who has a few assets and needs to plan for the future, and that covers a lot of people. Financial planning software fits in especially well for gifts to celebrate:

  • weddings
  • retirement
  • new job
  • graduation
  • new home
  • baby

How to Give the Gift of Financial Planning Software

eFinPLAN is subscription-based online software that costs $149 the first year and $99 each subsequent year. Learn more about eFinPLAN from my eFinPLAN review, and to give eFinPLAN online software as a gift, check out the ideas in How to Gift Wrap a Software Download.

Financial Fate costs $69.99 with free shipping, and you can learn more about it in my Financial Fate review. Either have the Financial Fate software CD shipped to you so you can wrap it up for gift giving, or enter the gift recipient's address as the shipping address when you checkout online (but Financial Fate cannot provide the gift wrap!).

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