Why I Love Money

I've been horrible when it comes to organizing our finances, but recently all that has changed. I've begun using personal finance software.

For a while I tried Intuit's Quicken, which is an excellent product, but, against my wishes, Microsoft has the better product for me: MS Money 2005.

I hate saying "Thank You" to Microsoft, because I'm pretty much anti-Microsoft (for the Redmond-based company is the Evil Empire from which Linux must deliver us). But . . . thanks, Microsoft (ugh!).

With Money, I quickly set up a budget that will work for me. It tells me what bills need to be paid when, and how much. It reports where all our money goes. On its start page it even tells me with a bar chart how close I am to reaching my preset monthly spending limit when it comes to groceries, dining out, and miscellaneous costs.

After every session, Money 2005 backs up my data to an external storage device of my choosing, so I don't have to worry if my computer crashes (MS Windows would never do that, would it?).

Having been the classic procrastinator when it comes to doing the checkbook, now I can't wait to receive our bills in the mail so I can crank out the payments that are already budgeted. I'm sure that feeling will pass soon, but at least now I won't dread taking care of our finances, because I will track it well and with the greatest amount of ease.

Also, tonight I enrolled in our bank's online services, so all of our up-to-the-minute information is at my fingertips.

Even with these marvels of technology, my mom does all of her checkbooking and bill paying by hand, using a skill she learned in school called "math." I don't know how she does it, but I'm sure she still does it better than me. Maybe some people don't need the computer crutch, but I definitely need Money.