Posted by Chris at September 13th, 2007

Kind of a side-track here but I feel that part of the whole concept of changing habits about money is getting things organized.  As you might have already surmised, I favor a minimalist approach, and I don’t like to pay too much for anything.  These are some essential tools that you can get for very-cheap-to-free that will help you organize your finances (and almost anything else, for that matter):

  • Budgeting and Financial Management
    For this I haven’t found a single piece of computer software better than YNAB.  That peculiarly-sounding acronym stands for You Need A Budget, a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.  The system is offered in two forms: Spreadsheet and Standalone.  The Spreadsheet is available fully functional for either Microsoft Office or OpenOffice formats, so it conceivably can be used regardless of what kind of computer you own.  The Standalone is a Microsoft Windows XP application exclusively.  I’ve used both, am currently using the Windows Standalone version, and would not go back to Microsoft Money or Quicken if they paid me.  YNAB works because it focuses on the PROCESS, not the outcomes.  What I mean by that is that most financial software focuses more on recording what happens, not on controlling what happens.  YNAB records, sure enough, but you begin by creating budgets and then YNAB shows you on-the-fly how you are doing, exactly how much you have remaining to spend in each category, and so forth.  The budget, not the register, is the central focus of YNAB.  It starts at $19.95 US and is a bargain at twice that price.
  • KDE PIM/PI: Possibly the single best calendar and contacts manager ever created.  The same software works on virtually any computing platform capable of running Windows or Linux (and possibly Mac as well, although I’ve not verified that).  The system supports syncing calendars and contact lists to multiple computers at once, so you can sync a whole slew of individual users to one calendar by using either a file that can be downloaded or a direct IP connection.  All the usual calendar features are supported including a visual display of allotted time for appointments, to-do lists with unlimited subcategorization and deadlines that display in the calendar, recurring tasks and appointments, detailed notes attached to tasks or appointments, views by day, 3 day, work week (5 day), week, month, or year.  The real kicker is the “What’s Next” view, which displays all appointments and to-do’s in plain text organized by Today, tomorrow, and so forth.  You can configure how far in the future this what’s next view extends.  All to-do’s are clickable through the What’s Next view so you can update the status of tasks on the fly without having to switch views.  The software has a little bit of a learning curve but the how-to docs that come with it, although minimalist, can get you through that.  The price is not a doggone dime.  Free software!
  • Your email application should absolutely be Mozilla Thunderbird.  Outlook is fine, and indeed is my second choice since I like how it integrates smoothly with contacts and calendar.  However, that’s a convenience feature for me and not worth the hefty price tag associated with Outlook.  If you have the money and want to spend it, go for it.  I don’t, and I don’t, and so I choose the free Thunderbird instead of the $100 Outlook.  (apologies to Microsoft but that’s my opinion).  I’ve found nothing I could do with Outlook as far as email is concerned that I couldn’t do with Thunderbird, and since I am using PIM/PI for contacts and calendar I am fine with those features not being part of Thunderbird.

These three things can REALLY help you get things organized.  I’ll post in more depth another time on specific uses of these tools and really tweaking things on the organizational front.

…enjoy the ride…