Purchasing Quicken software?

Question

Good evening, Quicken:

On November 20, 2015, I purchased "Quicken Home & Business, 2016" for $69.99. I continued using this software for years even after Quicken prevented/stopped me from downloading transactions from my bank. I am seventy-seven (77) and retired and am interested in using a more up-to-date Quicken software to manage my checking, savings and investments accounts. (I do NOT want to use any Quicken software that is overly complicated to learn and use!!) What would you recommend is an easier Quicken software for a retired man to use that is free or "reasonably" priced? Having used "Quicken Home & Business, 2016" for more than ten (10) years I am only interested in purchasing a Quicken software that is "easy to use" and inexpensive!! Thank you.

Yours truly,

Doug Olson

[personal info redacted]

Boatnmaniac · Answer

Most of the improvements made since 2016 are related to online services.  Online services includes things like downloading from financial institutions, downloading and importing stock prices and securities information and the Quicken Mobile and Quicken on the Web companion apps (which allows us to send a subset of our Quicken financial data to the Quicken Cloud so we can access it from our smart phones and from a web browser…can be helpful when traveling or not at home).

If you are not wanting to use these online services and want to continue entering and managing all of your Quicken data manually then I would recommend continuing to use your Quicken Home & Business 2016 software for as long as your computer and software continue to support it.  If/when you upgrade to a newer computer you might need to upgrade to Quicken Subscription (because it is likely your Quicken 2016 will not be able to be activated on it) but until then maintain the status quo and enjoy the fact that you are not needing to spend money on something that it sounds like you might not really need and might not really be providing you with any significant improvements.

But if you do want to upgrade to Subscription, I agree with @Jon that downgrading to Quicken Classic Deluxe might be your best option.  Premier would be your next best option as it provides a little more in the way of investments analysis and reporting but many people find Deluxe provides all of the investment management/analysis features that they need.

Oh, and if you do decide to buy Subscription Deluxe or Premier, all of your Home & Business data will be retained and you will be able to view it.  But you will not be able to use any of the unique Home & Business features anymore.

splasher · Answer

There is no free version of Quicken and "reasonably" priced" is a matter of how much you find a program to be worth and what your time is worth.

Newer subscription Quicken is not anymore complicated than your current Q2016 if you don't do downloads of transactions from your financial institutions.  The downloads can be troublesome, but in general they work, some better than others.

Subscription Quicken has a yearly cost and if you don't renew, you will loss some (~25%) of screen space to a nag panel reminding you of the feature that you are missing out on and you cannot get rid of it without renewing.

Is there some reason you want to change?  Is QW2016 no longer working?

Jon · Answer

Quicken is on a subscription basis now, you can't make a one-time purchase anymore the way you used to. There is no free version.

It sounds like you'd be fine with the Deluxe subscription, as a retiree I wouldn't think you'd need the business features anymore.