Product Description

Do you know where you money goes? Would balancing your budget take an act of Congress? Does your idea of preparing for the future involve lottery tickets?

This friendly guide provides everything you need to know to stay on top of your finances and make the most of your money — both your cash and your Microsoft Money 2006 software program (the Premium, Deluxe, or Standard edition). You’ll find out how to record financial transactions, analyze different investments, determine your net worth, plan for retirement, make informed financial decisions, and more.

With step-by-step, easy-to-understand instructions and lots of screen shots, Microsoft Money 2006 For Dummies shows and tells you how to:

• Set up accounts and record all transactions, including charge card purchases
• Do your banking, categorize your spending and income, reconcile an account, print checks, and more
• Research and track investments
• Create a realistic budget, schedule bill payments, estimate your income tax bill, plan for retirement, and more
• Generate reports and charts that help you understand your spending habits, see where you stand financially, and improve your financial picture
• Track assets, liabilities, loans, and mortgages
• Use online banking services

You can even get really serious and use the Lifetime Planner to map out your hopes and dreams and find out if you’re on the way to achieving them. This book could be the best investment you’ll ever make!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #459738 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

From the Back Cover
Covers Premium, Deluxe, and Standard editions of Money

Use Money to save money, make money, manage money, and get your money's worth

Ever hear that it takes money to make money? Spend a little on this book and discover easy ways to set up accounts, do your banking online, research and track investments, make payments on time, even generate reports that help you understand where your money's going. Best of all, you'll find you're actually managing your money!

Discover how to

• Set up Money or update from an earlier version
• Know what your investments are worth
• Estimate your tax bill
• Track income and expenses
• Generate reports
• Plan for retirement

About the Author
Peter Weverka is the bestselling author of several For Dummies books, including Office 2003 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, The Everyday Internet All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, and 29 other computer books about various topics. Peter’s books have been translated into 16 languages and sold three-quarter of a million copies. His humorous articles and stories — none related to computers, thankfully — have appeared in Harper’s, SPY, and other magazines for grown-ups.

Customer Reviews

Valuable Time-Saving Guide
If you own "Money 2005 for Dummies", you don't need "Money 2006 for Dummies", because the editorial content appears to be virtually identical in the two books. However, this manual is a real time-saver if you're trying to learn to navigate the powerful Microsoft Money program.

Microsoft Money has an unusually unfriendly user interface that hides locations for tools and custom-user settings in many unlikely places. Accessing the Microsoft help files requires going online, and the online files--written in the usual unhelpful Microsoft style--do not answer power-user questions. This book provides a desktop reference that aids you in setting up your initial financial files, and in understanding how the Money program is put together, so that you can quickly take full advantage of the multitude of wonderful things that the Money program can do for you.

Get Money's help in improving your financial picture
Pardon me for being immodest and giving this book five stars. I'm the author.

I wrote this book is for users of the Money 2006 Standard, Deluxe, and Premium editions (this book does not cover Microsoft Money 2006 Small Business edition). This book is for people who want to get to the heart of Money 2006 without wasting time. Don't look in this book to find out how Money works. Look in this book to find out how you can manage your finances with Money.

I show you everything you need to know to stay on top of your finances -- from recording checks and deposits to tracking your investments and planning for your retirement. On the way, you have a laugh or two. And you shed light on parts of your finances that have never seen the light of day before.

After you start using the techniques I describe in this book, you will know how to record financial transactions, how much you spend in different areas, and what your net worth is. You will know what the investments you have are worth and roughly how much you owe in taxes. You will know how to print checks, generate reports and charts that show in clear terms what your spending habits are, plan for retirement, and analyze different kinds of investments.

Most important, you will be able to make wise financial decisions by taking advantage of the Money's numerous financial analysis tools, all of which I explain in this book. And you will also make wise decisions, because you will have the raw data on hand. After you record transactions in Money, the raw data is right there inside your computer. I show you how to analyze it, scrutinize it, dissect it, investigate it, and contemplate it.

This book is for people who want to make wise use of Money 2006 and get the program's help in improving their financial picture.

Great for getting started, but missing what I was really looking for
I bought Microsoft Money 2007 Premium a few weeks ago. The interface was intuitive enough that I was able to get it set up and running without much trouble. I was also able to set up online functions with my various bank and investment accounts, including some institutions that are capable of automated updates, and some that require a manual download. Everything worked pretty slick, and transactions were rolling in nicely.

With all the data streaming in, I worked hard trying to figure out Money's balancing process, what it really means and how to assure everything balanced out and returned accurate figures for net worth, spending by category, investment values, etc. I got stuck with certain types of transfers from one account to another that were throwing off my reporting and decided I needed a book to help me learn the finer points.

I found that there is no book for 2007. I read that the changes from 2006 were minimal, so I ordered "Microsoft Money 2006 For Dummies" by Peter Weverka.

I found the book easy to read, topics easy to find, and I was able to get some answers on some basic questions, such as accurately splitting transactions across categories. I also liked the tips on how to more easily do the things I had already figured out, such as Find and Replace to edit transactions en masse. There are helpful warnings for potential pitfalls, which I don't think I'd have figured out on my own (at least not without pain).

My impression (totally subjective, of course) is that the author enjoys working with finances (and is really good at it), and recommends that we all take time to be careful and smart with our money. His book's advice, I thought, leaned toward manually handling accounts and taking a lot of time reconciling and balancing accounts.

I wish I were so inclined, but I really purchased Money for just about the opposite purpose! I'm more into letting the whiz-bang software do the work for me, in as automated a way as possible. I want to download the data from the bank, not enter it manually and then reconcile. After reading the book, I still do not know how to cope with the complicated volumes of data downloaded from my broker accounts: buys and sells, shifting of money from one fund to another, etc. There are only 24 pages out of 328 (one section) that are devoted to online banking. I was hungry for more.

I'm glad I have the book, and plan to give it another read through to make sure I didn't miss anything. I'll also keep looking for a book with more advanced information about the online features of Money.