I've been using Microsoft Money for several years to handle my finances and budgeting, but it has never really been a useful budgeting tool which is really my primary need.
Last night I started using YNAB (
www.youneedabudget.com) and it is absolutely fantastic. It is very simple and will work best for people that prefer to manually enter everything. It is designed with the budget as the central focus with the individual accounts being secondary. There is also a great support page that includes help videos and even live online classes on how to best use the software.
From my research there are two things that need improvement. First, the interface for downloading account information requires a lot more manual work than Microsoft Money or Quicken would. Second, there isn't any feature built in to remind you to pay your bills on time.
The budget methodology is based on the envelope method. There is a lot of information on their website including a free 7-day trial and a 30-day money back offer. This is a fairly new product from a "tiny" company so you may not have heard about it before, but it get's a lot of positive reviews.
Here's your chance to get control of your finances so you an purchase more parts from Marlin Crawler!
