I’m an old-skool Quicken user. \u00a0I’ve been using it since I was working on my first undergraduate degree. \u00a0Today, I use it for pretty much everything in my financial life.<\/p>\n
Back in my Linux days, I kept a Windows partition only for Quicken. \u00a0When I became a Mac user in 2001, I dutifully bought Quicken for Mac. \u00a0I’ve been disappointed in it from the beginning due to its lack of features and its unreliability. \u00a0I’ve upgraded faithfully on each version (with an exception, more on that in a minute) in the hopes that one or both of these issues would be addressed. \u00a0The former has, in a scant handful of cases; the latter possibly has, too, although not nearly enough for my tastes.<\/p>\n
But then the Intel transition happened, and Intuit made the decision that they would start over with a new version of Quicken for Mac instead of transitioning their existing codebase to Intel. \u00a0Having been on the Office:Mac team during the Intel transition, I have a reasonably good understanding of why they made that transition. \u00a0I understand the decision, even if I don’t really like it. \u00a0The new Quicken was delayed multiple times, and Intuit finally shipped Quicken Essentials for Mac<\/a> (QEM). \u00a0On its release, Intuit said that it didn’t have all of the features of its predecessor, Quicken 2007<\/a> (Q07). \u00a0I relied (and continue to rely) on some of those features, so I continued stumbling along with Q07.<\/p>\n OS X 10.7, Lion, changes that. \u00a0Q07 is my last PowerPC application that requires Rosetta, and Lion no longer supports Rosetta. \u00a0In all of my years of dissatisfaction with Quicken, I’ve looked at various alternatives, but have rejected them relatively quickly as not meeting my needs. \u00a0However, if I want to stay current with my OSes1<\/a><\/sup>, something’s gotta give. \u00a0Q07 has got to retire, and I’ve got to figure out what that is.<\/p>\n I currently run two instances of Q07. \u00a0One is on my personal Mac for my personal finances, one is on the household Mac for my shared finances with my husband. \u00a0He might also run an instance of Quicken for his personal finances, but I don’t use his Mac so I don’t know.<\/p>\n My personal finances consist of the following active accounts:<\/p>\n The household finances consist of the following:<\/p>\n What do I need in a Q07 replacement?<\/p>\n Q07 has some features that I don’t use:<\/p>\n That’s the state of my financial union right now. \u00a0Next up is to compile a list of the possible contenders and rank them. \u00a0After that, I’ll start downloading trials of the contenders (where applicable, that is) and see how they compare when running side-by-side with Q07 today. \u00a0Look for more posts in the future.<\/p>\n If you’ve got a favorite financial application that you’d like to recommend (or, an application that you’d like to recommend against), the comments are open. \u00a0You’ll get special bonus points if you note how well they will (or won’t) fit with the financial institutions or requirements that I’ve listed above.<\/p>\n My fear is that the winner is going to be Quicken for Windows<\/a>. \u00a0I’m sure that this makes me a bad VMware employee, but I don’t actually run Fusion<\/a>6<\/a><\/sup> on my Mac at home. \u00a0If I’m going to have to install Fusion, then purchase and install Windows, I’m not sure if I want to reward Intuit by buying another copy of Quicken. \u00a0This does mean that if you’ve got Windows financial software options, I’m open to those as well, although my preference is definitely for Mac-native apps.<\/p>\n I’m an old-skool Quicken user. \u00a0I’ve been using it since I was working on my first undergraduate degree. \u00a0Today, I use it for pretty much everything in my financial life. Back in my Linux days, I kept a Windows partition only for Quicken. \u00a0When I became a Mac user in 2001, I dutifully bought Quicken … Continue reading the road away from Quicken (part 1)<\/span> \n
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