Alternatives

We really don't want to switch from Quicken on the Mac, but at some point you have to start eying the exits, even if you don't actually bolt from the room.

Before the rumors of a new version came out at MacWorld, I was seriously considering running the Windows version of Quicken under VMware Fusion, which I already own and love. My biggest reason for not pulling the trigger on that was I didn't want to deal with another data conversion - I abandoned Quicken 2004 for the PC shortly before it was de-supported for online transactions.

Here are some applications I've stumbled across on the web. I haven't used any of them, but would love to hear from you if you have used them or know of any others.

• iBank - www.iggsoftware.com/index.php
• Moneydance - moneydance.com/mac
• Cha-Ching - www.midnightapps.com
  

Tom: For a while I tried out Mvelopes, an online money management system. At the time that I checked it out (a year and a half ago), it seemed very promising. It supports the "envelope" method of budgeting, so you're planning on where your money will go, instead of after the fact seeing where it went. It links into your bank's online system, so you don't have to do any data entry.

The downside for me at the time was that it's an Ajax application (like Google Docs), and the computer I had at the time (an original 'desklamp' iMac) just didn't quite have the horsepower to run all of the Javascript cleanly. Mvelopes needs you to drag different transactions into different envelopes, and the dragging just didn't work smoothly.

The other problem with Mvelopes is that, by relying on your bank's online system, there's going to be some unknown amount of lag time between when you buy something and when it gets taken out of the respective envelope. This might work okay if you're the only one spending your money, but like Charles, I'm married, and my wife is the one who spends most of our day-to-day expenses (groceries, gas, etc.). She needs to be able to look at a bottom line and get an accurate picture of what's left in the tank.