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By Root 609 0

is one big commercial for Quicken. It’s not. In fact, they baffle me. When I switched over to Mac in 2007, the once robust finance tracking I had enjoyed on my PC was destroyed by Quicken for Mac 2007, a much less powerful program. It still worked, but it was a scaled down version of its PC brother because no one really took Macs seriously from 1985–1997 (their market share was still only in the single digits until the last few years). In 2010, I switched over to Quicken Essentials for Mac. It was a huge mistake and I don’t recommend it. Puzzlingly, you cannot port a QE file to the PC version, so it is useless at tax time because guess who doesn’t use Macs? ACCOUNTANTS. Maybe some do, but none that I’ve talked to. Even further, neither one of those are compatible with Mint (Mint.com), a wonderful online accounting program that Quicken’s parent company Intuit purchased in 2009. All of this info is as of the writing of this book in early 2011, so maybe they’ll start making decent decisions by the time it comes out. Personally, I’m running Parallels (a PC emulator) SOLELY to use Quicken for PC (which is SO good! That’s why I don’t understand the Mac slackage.). Because I run a business as well as the personal stuff, it’s worth it. If you don’t, and you have a Mac and aren’t comfortable tracking your money in the cloud on Mint, then QE will do the job. Just export PDF reports to your accountant, if you have one. In theory it’s good because the interface works with tags and looks like iTunes, but it just doesn’t have that many features yet. Hopefully that will change.

Getting out of the Intuit family, I asked the Twitter Nerds who they were using and got this list. I have not used any of these, so I can’t comment on their quality or effectiveness, but it’ll give you some playtime screwing around until you find one that fits your needs:

GNUcash (gnucash.org): freeware, open source

FreshBooks (freshbooks.com): from $0–$39.95 per month; business and personal

QuickBooks (quickbooks.com): $229.95–$399.95; great for businesses

iBank 4 (iggsoftware.com/ibank): $59.99, also has investment tracking

Sage Peachtree (peachtree.com): $199.99–$A lot, depending on the size of the business

Twitter user @KraziRenee suggested “Rain Man”

There are a ton of other ones I had never heard of, and there’s a fairly comprehensive list if you go to Wikipedia and search “accounting software.” Just pick one. If you hate it, you can most likely export your data as a .csv file and import it into another program. Whatever you decide is probably better than what you’re doing now.

HUGE SIDE NOTE: BACK UP YOUR ACCOUNTING FILE REGULARLY . If you only have one copy of the file and you lose it through a crash or for any reason, you will murder the creature in closest proximity.

SAVE SAVE SAVE

A book that changed my perception of money (and many people’s perception of money) is called The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason. You may have heard of it because most financial gurus have recommended it at one time or another. I’m not giving groundbreaking information here. It’s an old book that is a quick, enlightening read, and it will give you some money goals and direction. It will teach you how to pay yourself first, with every bit of cash that comes your way. It will teach you the basics of planning and building and having a nest egg. Even if you feel like “I could NEVER do that,” just try it and see anyway. I cannot properly encapsulate the feeling of watching your savings actually begin to grow if you’re used to living paycheck to paycheck. This is the kind of shit that alters the direction of your life for the better. #HUGS

USE TRASHING TO SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE

My life used to be a mess. I had accumulated a seemingly limitless assortment of toys, books, inoperative gadgets, and, of course, faded newspapers. The worst is gag gifts. Particularly when you’re a comedian, people love to give you “hilarious” gifts: pens with boobs on them, Pol Pot bobbleheads, calendars with the Pope’s head Photoshopped onto