One of my goals this year was to switch from Microsoft Money Plus to Quicken for my personal financial planning software. I was going to time this with my tax software purchase, so I could get a discount on Quicken at the same time. However, after reviewing the pros and cons, I’ve decided to stick with MS Money for another year. Rather than make the switch, I’m going to invest a little more time into Money and clean up some issues that I’ve been meaning to fix. Why not make the switch to Quicken this year?
No Feature Incentive
There is no single Quicken feature that would compel me to buy it off the shelf. The only reason I was considering buying it was out of fear; fear that future downloads into MS Money would stop working. But until that happens, knock on wood, there’s no reason for me to make the switch. The longer I hold out, the better Quicken will get, and the fewer headaches I’ll have to deal with.
Bugginess
Every time you use a Microsoft product, you instinctively assume it’s crap and that there’s a better version of this software out there. While in many cases true, this actually wasn’t the case with MS Money. Sure, we all had our complaints about the product. And it would crash or become corrupted unexpectedly on numerous occasions. But if you check the Intuit boards for Quicken, you’ll find all the exact same issues. Some even worse than the ones MS Money users faced. Switching from Money to Quicken is like taking out one dictator, just so another can take his place. And both these dictators can’t code worth a dime.
No Reason to Buy Turbo Tax
Among the two do-it-yourself tax software programs, (Turbo Tax and H&R Block At Home) Turbo Tax is the more expensive option. While Turbo Tax definitely offers more features than H&R Block’s program, personally, my financial situation isn’t complex enough to warrant the upgrade. This year, even though I lost my job and moved to another state, I’ll likely end up taking the standard deduction as usual.
At the end of the day, while I’m still having numerous issues using the program, MS Money is “good enough” for now. And Quicken just seems like a similar program with more of the same problems, not an actual upgrade. Here’s to another year of fixing bugs, creating personal workarounds, and scouring the Money help forums.
