Quickenizing your children

MSStateDawg

I have had difficulty getting my children in the habit of using Quicken to manage finances. Got them checking and savings accounts when they were 10 or so, set them up in Quicken, showed them how easy it is to download transactions. Brow beat them to spend 3 min daily on it...trying to form a habit. It sank in on neither.

They're now in the mid-twenties. One lets their spouse manage all home finances and they use some other tool. The other looks like they're about to have more interest and may just pick it up.

What success have you had, if any, with getting your children to use a tool like Quicken responsibly? Do they consider it "Dad's thing" and seek other tools they consider more modern?

Tom Young

You really have to want to track your finances closely and be willing to do the work required to pick up Quicken and stick with it.  Not everybody is so constituted.

I never pushed Quicken on either of my children, though they certainly knew I used it.  The oldest child doesn't use it.  The younger child did use it for a while but stopped using it after the birth of their child as things just got too hectic.  Both of them use phone-based apps for checking and credit cards but I don't think either of them have adopted any Web-based tools to pull all their finances together in one place.

BK

Most younger generation will not use Quicken as it is not scalable for the future IMO.  To that point, I use mobile apps to access my banks due to speed and simplicity instead of a computer.  And it is only a matter of time that I too may stop using Quicken mostly due to recent lack of trust in the accuracy of the downloaded data.  So why would I introduce them anyone to something that is inconsistent and frustrating?

The other reason is that their financial life is not as complex yet to require an elaborate program.  Couple of banks and investments is manageable.  It is not until they get into their 30-40s when things become more complex and by then Quicken as we know it may not exist.

Personal finance is something that needs to be taught in schools consistently from young age every year, quarter, semester, etc.  I'd be curious to know when the young Quicken employees and moderators here will continue to use it once they make they move to the next career.

Thank you for this interesting water cooler topic @MSStateDawg

Rocket J Squirrel

At this time, I would not recommend Quicken to a loved one. It has too many issues and you would become technical support.

Chris_QPW

BK said:

Personal finance is something that needs to be taught in schools consistently from young age every year, quarter, semester, etc. 

I'm not an educator, but if I was and I was teaching person finance, the last thing I would do is teach them Quicken.  There are so much more important things to teach them than how to use a given program, especially Quicken.

I sort of get a kick out of how a lot of Quicken users harp on how verify that the financial institutions are doing the right thing when 99.9999% of time it is Quicken or the user that has the problem that has to be fixed to line up with what the financial institution is telling them.