Where has all my money gone?? Now you know!

Ever wondered how all your money was being spent? I used to have this problem, but now Microsoft Money 2002 tells me exactly where it went!

This program is easy to use and very comprehensive. You can have it keep track of several different types of accounts, monitor your stocks, and even keep record of your major investments (cars, houses, etc.)

Right off the bat, there is an easy wizard to get you started. You begin using the software by telling it what type of accounts you have, their balances, and what bank/institution it resides in. If you bank is compatible, it can even download your transactions for you so you don't have to manually balance your accounts.

Once all of your accounts are set up, daily usage is quite easy. For myself, I wanted a way to keep track of all my transactions so I could see where my money was going and how I can reduce spending in certain areas. This is easily accomplished by Money 2002. When you enter a new transaction into money you need to tell it 5 things:
1) Date of transaction (it assumes Today by default)
2) $$ Spent in transaction
3) Who you paid (or what store, business, etc.)
4) What account (from the list you already specified)
5) Transaction category

There are plenty of built in categories for anything you could dream of spending your money on. Best of all, you can add your own categories and delete any you don't want.

At the end of the month, or at any time really, you can have Money generate any type of report you want - spending, income, cash flow, etc. It can be displayed in tables, pie charts, bar charts, and more. You can also run "monthly reports" which compare your spending and income to previous months which is useful in identifying changes in your spending habits.

Money also makes balancing your accounts simple. When you get a bank statement in the mail, simple go to the appropriate account in Money, and tell it to balance it. You enter the starting and ending balances for the period of time, and then check off each transaction as listed on your statement. When all is finished, hopefully you will be balanced, but if not Money will suggest possible transaction errors you might have made. Its even easier if your bank allows statement downloads online.

The bottom line is that if you can be consistent in entering your transactions every day (or every week or whatever), Money 2002 will do the number crunching give you the information you're looking for. For $20 or so, you can't go wrong with this piece of software.