I'm looking at getting my house more in order, and i've been trying to save more, but there are so many different versions of the software and procurement options that i'm getting confused. Has anyone used it productively, or is it a waste of time?

I use Quicken 2004 for Mac. I find it useful- but it isnt going to change your life. I think it is more a matter of knowing what you want software to do and then say oh Quicken does that. It does do budgets etc. And you can download from your financial institutions.

budgets and watching my books are the big things. Basically i want to be able to track spending and see how much progress I'm making in saving towards big purchases.

I had Quicken, started out okay, then somehow the balances would get all out of sync with the downloaded bank statements and it would fuck everything up with giant (positive or negative) balances. I also fucked up MS Money. I'm also a financial buffoon.

I've thought about trying out Mvelopes. PC World Review of Mvelopes.

i just went ahead and bought it, it's not too expensive on amazon. we'll see if it helps.

my wife is an accountat and she uses quicken on our mac and seems to be satisfied. I don't do any of our finacials but she watches our bank account like a hawk.