As you learn to do more with Quicken, you’ll expand your knowledge of-and ideas about-money. Yet somehow, owning the program might get you thinking about aspects of your personal finances that you were content to completely ignore in the past. Your Quicken ambitions may be no bigger than balancing your checkbook. Every minute you spend learning the program is time well spent.

Quicken can use that information over and over to calculate things like what you’ve spent, how much you still owe, or even your net worth. Best of all, once you enter a bit of financial information into Quicken-like a check, deposit, credit card transaction, or loan payment-you never have to type it again. Features and techniques that you’re familiar with from other programs (windows, dialog boxes, drop-down menus, keyboard shortcuts, and so on) work the same way in Quicken. Using the program as an electronic checkbook isn’t much different from recording checks and deposits in a paper register. If budgeting’s your downfall, Quicken can help build a budget to achieve your savings goals.

If you have trouble remembering to transfer extra cash into higher-interest-rate savings, for example, you can set up Quicken to remind you. The program’s hundreds of features share one purpose: to help manage your personal finances. Quicken 2009 can do all that and more, and this book will show you how. You want Quicken to provide an overview of your financial health, while sparing you the time and tedium of balancing your checkbook and tracking every investment by hand. Like most people who buy Quicken, you’re probably looking for help: with credit card receipts, checking account statements, retirement plans, and on and on the list goes.

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