Saturday, January 28, 2012

I use Quicken (meh) and my forced upgrade is coming, grumble

I've been using Quicken since 1997 and generally I am very happy with the software. I am currently using Quicken Premier 2009. There really is no other software that allows me to consolidate all my finances in one single view. Barron's calls Quicken "The Best Money Manager" and the story's opening sentence reads "if you're reading Barron's, you need Quicken to help manage your finances". I read Barron's, 'nuff said I suppose. My financial holdings are not massive but I have enough accounts in different places that Quicken is very useful for me. It does connect and download data from all my financial institutions with little to no problems. Plus it rolls up my net worth as a single number. And since I've been using it for nearly 15 years I can see my net worth over time (it's been growing) among other financial and budget reports. To keep your money organized and do decent personal financial planning you need Quicken.

Although I recommend Quicken, Quicken is dying. Every year Quicken releases an updated version and as far as I can tell there is little change between versions. I really have no desire to upgrade and waste $50 or more to get no new features. Intuit is smart/devious in that they 'sunset' their software. Intuit only supports the current and previous three versions with their online features. Older versions will function, but they cannot download your financial data from the internet. So Intuit basically handicaps their software by giving it a maximum of a 4 year lifespan thus forcing their users to give them money for an upgrade. My version is on the cusp of this 'sunset'. Here's what I get every time I open Quicken:


Alert: Your Quicken 2009 Online Services End April 30, 2012.
You will no longer be able to do the following in your version of Quicken 2009:
  • Get automatic Quicken account updates reflecting the latest activity from your banks, credit cards, credit unions, or investment accounts
  • Pay bills, get stock quotes, or read news headlines from within Quicken
  • Get customer support online or by phone
To continue using these services and get access to the latest tools and enhancements, you need to upgrade to Quicken 2012.


I need the online features Quicken offers to manage my money so I will be forced to update. I won't think of this as an upgrade as there seems to be no compelling new features but more of a subscription renewal. I'd look at alternatives but basically there are none.

Know of any coupon codes I can use to get the cost under $50 for the upgrade?

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