How do I know where my money is going?

When I first started budgeting this was my biggest question. I had no way of categorizing my expenses or tracking them so I knew where my money was going. I would sit down and say where did that money go? or What did we buy for $40.00 at Walmart? I had no idea what I was buying and nothing to show for the money I had put into it.

I was shown something that has changed my life. A good friend of mine told me about Quicken. I had never heard of it but when she told me what it did I knew it was what I needed to get a handle on our finances. It helped you track your expenses, balance your check book, and categorize your spending. It also set up budgets for you and helped you to track other things like investments or credit cards.

This was 4 years ago that I was told about it and I have used it ever since. I am so in love with this software. Totally worth the money we spent to get it. Along with the things I said above it also can be connected to your bank account and you can update it through the Internet so your accounts are always up to date. It also lets you itemize your receipts. so your Walmart transaction can be filed under household expenses, groceries and medicine. you don't have to pick just 1 category for those types of transactions.

I just recently found out that Quicken has come out with a free online version of Quicken. It is totally complete, but has pretty much all the things you need to have when first starting out budgeting and tracking your expenses. The one thing that is a biggies for me is that you can not itemize your transactions online, it is one category per transaction. for some it wouldn't bother, but because of the way I budget, I like to have the different categories there.

Please if you are trying to budget and getting frustrated with it, go get quicken or try the online version. it is worth every penny if you decide to buy and the online version is wonderful as well.

~Melissa~