ISO Quicken Budget Coach

EPSD

This is a question that I've seen other users, including Krista Rogers and Tanya Stoll, seeking answers for in the past. We are each seeking a Quicken budget coach. To quote Krista's request from 2018:

I would like to have a few sessions with a financial advisor / coach who knows Quicken really well. My purpose is:

• To have him or her help me create a budget based on my historical data.
• To help me evaluate how my new budget fits into my larger financial picture and goals.
• To get me to the place where I maintain a budget, it fits my needs and resources, I use it to keep me on track.

jr7107

I can offer help with the first bullet. I have the luxury of multiple years of income and spending tracked in QWin. The first thing I do is create a report from the previous year of all income and expenses by category, with the months in columns. Then I export that to a spreadsheet. Why? Because I like the flexibility of the sheet to present it the way I want versus a report.

Here is an example I created for a CAD friend (RRSP similar to 401k) but the same principles apply. Presented visually, you can see the spend in each category as well as the savings goals. If you have enough data, create it for the previous two years to see trends. Do analysis and drill into what is driving the numbers, and analyze outliers (high and low from trend).

You can then use this data to populate your budgeting tool for those purposes. You can use previous year spending as model for future years, and tweak where you find surplus or deficit.

The savings tracker at the bottom of the sheet is optional, it was something my people were interested in so I included it in the screenshot.

The toughest part is just getting started, once you do it is a rewarding activity.