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4 steps to ace a fall financial checkup

fall financial checkup
Tuesday, 05 September 2017 / Published in Uncategorized

4 steps to ace a fall financial checkup

CNBC, September 3, 2017

Fall financial cleanup

If kids can get organized for the start of school, adults should be able to do something similar with their finances.

The beginning of fall is the perfect time to revisit your financial wellness and make some changes before the end of the year, experts say.

These days, families have less slack in their budgets than before, according to research by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Household spending has risen 25 percent or more in the past two decades, even adjusting for inflation — yet incomes have not kept pace, the study said.

In addition, previous Pew research found that one in three American families have no savings.

“All the planning is meaningless if we don’t follow through.”-Mark Avallone, president of Potomac Wealth Advisors and author of “Countdown to Financial Freedom”

1.) Budget

To that end, this is a crucial time to revisit your 2017 cash flow and see how it is shaping up.

“There’s no sense in setting a 2018 budget if you’re not going to adhere to it,” said Mark Avallone, president of Potomac Wealth Advisors and author of “Countdown to Financial Freedom.”

Avallone added that “all the planning is meaningless if we don’t follow through. It’s very important to track your revenue and expenses and automatically save any discretionary cash that’s left over,” he said.

“Traditionally people say 10 percent, but in reality they may need to save well over that target.”

Read more here.

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Barbara Ann Feeney
16-05-2016

I switched from pencil and paper on grid accounting paper, then to a Google spreadsheet, then to CountAbout. Really happy with how this app makes it easy to track how I doing, staying (or not) on budget.

 
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15-11-2016

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16-07-2016

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05-02-2016

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24-11-2016

...you won’t be bombarded with ads when you log in. Mint, for example, uses targeted ads to help keep the platform free. All in all, CountAbout could be a good choice for Quicken and Mint users who want to start fresh with their finances without losing their past transaction history.

 
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20-01-2017

I love the software – nice and clean – the categories was a must have that your competitors are lacking.

 
Widgets to Compare Monthly Spending in Active Categories
17-02-2017

Huzzah! I can add widgets now and already made one to compare my monthly spending in my active categories to my budget. Excellent. That tool is one of my favorite features in a personal finance product.

 
Shirley Hou
CountAbout was Perfect
15-03-2017

I was looking for finance software to use as treasurer of the parent-teacher association at my child's school. CountAbout was perfect - it had all the register features and download capabilities that I was familiar with from desktop Quicken, but it has the advantage of being in the cloud so I can use it from any computer.

 
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Steve P.
22-09-2017

My search for a cloud-based alternative to Quicken is over! Very easy to transfer my Quicken data and customize my account. Thank you CountAbout!

 
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Jim Powell
17-03-2018

Vastly superior to the execrable Quicken, which caused me to have to choose a new bank password every time I used it. CA is fast, simple, and all you need unless you have a complicated investment portfolio. Its almost fun!

 
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Jeffrey Wilk
02-04-2018

Great product and great customer service. Thanks!

 
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Nancy
10-08-2018

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Dana Linder
29-03-2019

This is an incredibly well thought out program.

It imports QIF files perfectly. I tried a number that failed miserably.

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The companion phone app is very simple. You can browse, search, enter transactions and see scheduled transaction. That's really all you need on the phone.

It's one failing for me is that I have a transaction that I have a transaction that occurs on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, and it's not possible to set that up. It's easy enough for me to change the date of next transaction when I enter the current one.

I am extremely impressed with the company. The trial is free for 15 days. You have nothing to lose.

 
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Keith Hurst
22-05-2020

I've been trying to ditch Quicken for years, finally a worthy replacement, but it's so much more, so clean and intuitively designed. I was really surprised and delighted to find a full featured iphone app that meets all my needs.

 
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Amanda Sherlock
25-08-2020

I started using Quicken in 1987, before I had my own PC. I continued using it for years, frustrated by the frequent breaks in the synchronization. Finally I took the leap and used Mint for a year or two. Free software is worth as much as I pay for. Finally, in 2019 I found Countabout. The synchronization is great and I am happy to have a product that's easy to use and reliable. The customer support is excellent and very responsive to my questions.
There aren't as many bells and whistles as Quicken but the simplicity outweighs the complications.

 
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Richard Luna
03-02-2021

I'm a one-person real estate brokerage and having accurate financial records and being able to easily search transactions and generate reports is crucial. I'd been using Quicken for Mac for 10+ years and wanted to migrate to using a Chromebook instead of a Mac, to do that I had to find a replacement for Quicken.

The replacement had to be online; available from my phone, tablet, etc., and no software installations almost every year. I immediately dismissed any 'free' financial software (Mint, etc.) - I believe that you get what you pay for and there is no such thing as 'free.'

I settled on Tiller and CountAbout and subscribed to both; I quickly decided that a spreadsheet is not what I wanted. I wanted something that worked a lot like Quicken and CountAbout fit the bill. It took me awhile to fully embrace it but once I did I've been very happy and would not go back to Quicken even if they offered a fully online version. The few times I've had a question about using CountAbout I've always gotten a response by the end of the day - and often in an hour or less. If feels like I'm working with a small enterprise that's interested in putting out a superior application, improving it and solving issues and responding to questions. I'm very satisfied!

 

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