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Different Ways of Doing Things
By Janean Comfort
We talk about budgeting a lot over here at Quicken but budgeting is an essential practice for managing personal finances effectively, ensuring that your spending aligns with your income, and achieving your financial goals. By using budgeting tools, you can gain a clear and organized view of your financial situation, track your expenses, and identify areas where you can save. These tools help in creating a realistic budget plan, allowing for better decision-making and fostering a sense of control over your finances. Whether you're planning for short-term needs or long-term aspirations, budgeting is the key to financial stability and growth.
But we do not all budget the same.
Many of us view and experience money differently. Even looking at numbers on paper or a screen can be overwhelming for some. Given that we live our lives in such diverse ways, it makes sense that we also budget our finances differently.
Unique Budgeting Techniques
Quicken offers a variety of unique budgeting techniques to help you manage your finances effectively. For example, using watchlists allows you to track specific stocks and securities without impacting your budget. Category exclusions can give you a clearer picture of your financial health by excluding liabilities like mortgages from net worth calculations. Custom budget reports enable detailed analysis of spending trends, and split transactions allow for precise allocation of expenses across multiple categories. Implementing rolling budgets lets you carry over unspent amounts to the next month, promoting savings. Seasonal budgeting helps manage fluctuating expenses by setting up separate budgets for different times of the year, while project-based budgeting keeps large, one-time expenses separate from regular budgets. Lastly, zero-based budgeting ensures every dollar is accounted for, and envelope budgeting helps avoid overspending by allocating funds to specific categories. These techniques can be customized for both Windows and Mac users, providing flexibility and clarity in financial planning.
- Using Watchlists:
- Windows: Create investment watchlists to track specific stocks, bonds, or mutual funds that you're interested in. This helps you monitor potential investments without impacting your current budget.
- Mac: Use the Portfolio view to create watchlists for different asset classes or individual securities to keep an eye on market movements.
- Category Exclusions for Net Worth:
- Exclude specific budget categories from your net worth calculations to get a clearer picture of your financial health. For example, you can exclude liabilities like mortgage or car loans if you want to focus solely on liquid assets.
- Steps:
- Go to the category list.
- Select the category you want to exclude.
- Choose the option to exclude it from net worth calculations.
- Steps:
- Exclude specific budget categories from your net worth calculations to get a clearer picture of your financial health. For example, you can exclude liabilities like mortgage or car loans if you want to focus solely on liquid assets.
- Creating Custom Budget Reports:
- Windows: Generate custom budget reports that focus on specific categories or time frames. This can help you analyze spending trends and make more informed decisions.
- Mac: Use the built-in report customization options to create detailed views of your budget performance, including comparisons with previous periods.
- Split Transactions:
- Split transactions to allocate a single expense across multiple budget categories. This is useful for complex purchases like grocery shopping, where different items may fall under different categories.
- Steps:
- Enter the transaction.
- Choose the split option and allocate amounts to the relevant categories.
- Steps:
- Split transactions to allocate a single expense across multiple budget categories. This is useful for complex purchases like grocery shopping, where different items may fall under different categories.
- Rolling Budgets:
- Implement rolling budgets to carry over unspent amounts to the next month. This encourages saving and ensures that leftover funds are not wasted.
- Steps:
- Set up your budget.
- Adjust the settings to allow for rollover of unspent funds.
- Steps:
- Implement rolling budgets to carry over unspent amounts to the next month. This encourages saving and ensures that leftover funds are not wasted.
- Seasonal Budgeting:
- Plan for seasonal expenses like holidays, vacations, or back-to-school shopping by setting up separate budgets for different times of the year. This helps you manage fluctuating expenses better.
- Steps:
- Create multiple budget templates.
- Activate the relevant template based on the season.
- Steps:
- Plan for seasonal expenses like holidays, vacations, or back-to-school shopping by setting up separate budgets for different times of the year. This helps you manage fluctuating expenses better.
- Project-Based Budgeting:
- Create budgets for specific projects or events, such as home renovations or weddings. This keeps your regular budget separate from these large, one-time expenses.
- Steps:
- Set up a new budget category for the project.
- Track all related expenses under this category.
- Steps:
- Create budgets for specific projects or events, such as home renovations or weddings. This keeps your regular budget separate from these large, one-time expenses.
- Zero-Based Budgeting:
- Allocate every dollar of your income to a specific category, ensuring that your total income minus expenses equals zero. This method helps you control spending and prioritize financial goals.
- Steps:
- List all your income sources.
- Assign each dollar to a category until your income matches your planned expenses.
- Steps:
- Allocate every dollar of your income to a specific category, ensuring that your total income minus expenses equals zero. This method helps you control spending and prioritize financial goals.
- Envelope Budgeting:
- Use the envelope budgeting method to set aside money for different categories, similar to physical envelopes. This technique can help you avoid overspending.
- Steps:
- Create “envelopes” in Quicken for each category.
- Allocate funds to each envelope and track spending.
- Steps:
- Use the envelope budgeting method to set aside money for different categories, similar to physical envelopes. This technique can help you avoid overspending.
Excluding Budgets from Net Worth Calculations
- Exclude Specific Accounts:
- Windows and Mac: To exclude specific accounts (like credit card balances or loans) from net worth calculations, go to the account settings and select the option to exclude from net worth.
- Steps:
- Navigate to the Accounts list.
- Select the account you want to exclude.
- Choose the option to exclude it from net worth calculations.
- Steps:
- Windows and Mac: To exclude specific accounts (like credit card balances or loans) from net worth calculations, go to the account settings and select the option to exclude from net worth.
- Exclude Specific Categories:
- Windows and Mac: To exclude certain budget categories (like liabilities or depreciating assets), edit the category settings to ensure they are not included in net worth reports.
- Steps:
- Go to the Category list.
- Select the category you want to exclude.
- Choose the option to exclude it from net worth calculations.
- Steps:
- Windows and Mac: To exclude certain budget categories (like liabilities or depreciating assets), edit the category settings to ensure they are not included in net worth reports.
- Custom Net Worth Reports:
- Create custom net worth reports that only include the accounts and categories relevant to your financial goals.
- Steps:
- Go to the Reports section.
- Select or create a custom net worth report.
- Adjust the settings to include or exclude specific accounts and categories.
- Steps:
- Create custom net worth reports that only include the accounts and categories relevant to your financial goals.
By utilizing these unique budgeting techniques and features in Quicken, you can tailor your financial planning to meet your specific needs and goals. Here are the steps in Quicken to utilize these unique budgeting techniques.
- Using Watchlists
- Windows:
- Step 1: Go to the "Investing" tab.
- Step 2: Click on "Watch List."
- Step 3: Add securities by typing their ticker symbols.
- Step 4: Monitor these securities to track potential investments without affecting your budget.
- Mac:
- Step 1: Go to the "Investing" section.
- Step 2: Click on "Watch List."
- Step 3: Add the securities you want to track by entering their ticker symbols.
- Step 4: Use this list to keep an eye on market movements without impacting your budget.
- Windows:
- Category Exclusions for Net Worth
- Windows:
- Step 1: Go to "Tools" > "Category List."
- Step 2: Select the category you want to exclude.
- Step 3: Click "Edit" and uncheck the box that includes it in net worth calculations.
- Mac:
- Step 1: Go to "Window" > "Categories."
- Step 2: Select the category you want to exclude.
- Step 3: Click "Edit" and uncheck "Include in Net Worth."
- Windows:
- Creating Custom Budget Reports
- Windows:
- Step 1: Go to "Reports" > "Budget."
- Step 2: Customize the report by selecting specific categories and time frames.
- Step 3: Save the report for future use.
- Mac:
- Step 1: Go to "Reports" > "Budget."
- Step 2: Use the customization options to select the desired categories and periods.
- Step 3: Save the customized report for easy access.
- Windows:
- Split Transactions
- Windows:
- Step 1: Enter a transaction in your register.
- Step 2: Click on the "Split" button.
- Step 3: Allocate portions of the transaction to different categories.
- Mac:
- Step 1: Enter a transaction.
- Step 2: Click the "Split" button next to the amount.
- Step 3: Distribute the total amount across multiple categories.
- Windows:
- Rolling Budgets
- Windows:
- Step 1: Go to "Planning" > "Budget."
- Step 2: Click on "Edit Budget."
- Step 3: Enable the option to carry over unspent amounts to the next month.
- Mac:
- Step 1: Go to "Budgeting."
- Step 2: Click "Edit Budget."
- Step 3: Set up the budget to allow for rollovers of unspent funds.
- Windows:
Custom Net Worth Reports
- Windows:
- Step 1: Go to "Reports" > "Net Worth."
- Step 2: Customize the report by selecting the accounts and categories to include.
- Step 3: Save the customized report for future use.
- Mac:
- Step 1: Go to "Reports" > "Net Worth."
- Step 2: Use the customization options to select specific accounts and categories.
- Step 3: Save the customized report for easy access.
By utilizing these unique budgeting techniques and features in Quicken for both Windows and Mac, you can effectively manage your finances and tailor your budgeting approach to fit your individual needs.
For more information on how to create a budget for Quicken Classic For Windows, please visit this FAQ.
For more information on how to create a budget for Quicken Classic For MAC, please visit this FAQ.
Question of The Month:
Do you have a unique way of budgeting? Were you taught to budget one way when you were younger and stuck with that technique or do you use a variety of techniques?
Latest Releases
The latest Quicken for Windows release are Release R57.25 and R57.26 and they are now live and available to all users. Some highlights from this release are:
- The alternate row coloring setting is now hidden for reports that don't support it.
- Some manual backup files were being deleted due to an automated file backup limit.
- Issue preventing some users from making local backups of their data files.
Before you install any update, we recommend you perform a One Step Update. You should also make a backup of your data file. To see all the current releases for Windows, please visit this support article.
We released Version 7.8, 7.8.1, & 7.8.2 for Quicken Classic for Mac users. Some highlights from these releases are:
- Added a Watchlist which allows you to monitor specific securities for potential trading or investing opportunities (available in Premier and Business & Personal subscriptions).
- You can now create folders to organize your custom reports more efficiently.
- You can now create a Loan to Others to track received payments and income interest for a loan you have made to another person or a business.
- Fixed an issue where an edited transaction was not scrolled back into view when saving.
- Fixed an issue where the search field was cleared when switching between tabs in the Payees & Rules window.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when adding a security to Watchlist.
- Fixed a bug that prevented long category names from displaying in Transaction reports.
- Fixed a 7.8.0 issue that caused Quicken to save more backups than specified in Settings > Backup.
- Fixed a bug that prevented some Watchlist view settings from being saved.
To see all the current releases for Mac, please visit this support article.
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Comments
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how can quicken stay in business? The huge number of errors/problems make the product unreliable! My version of Quicken all of a sudden does not allow me to get to my data…instead it says QuickenID problem. Whats going on….one minute working, next minute locked out….
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