Much of the software I mention below can be used with a Mac or PC.  For example, two of my favorite money management software products, Mvelopes (online software) and YNAB (desktop software), both mention on their website they will work with a Mac or PC.   You might consider the free trials to see how they work with your Mac.

You Need a Budget – You Need a Budget, also commonly known as YNAB 3, is desktop envelope budgeting software you install on your computer. As with Mvelopes, you can transfer money between categories.  With this product you have to manually download transactions from your banks and upload them.  You can then assign transactions to spending categories and budget proactively by assigning income to categories (the product tells you how much you have to budget).

I recently started using YNAB as my household money management software.   Get a free 34 day trial of YNAB

Quicken Essentials for Mac – Quicken Essentials for Mac provides automatic categorization of transactions, the ability to see all your money and net worth in one place and a money snap shot page that allows you to see bills and where your money is going each month.  It also provides a bill tracking feature to avoid late fees.  This product makes the best money management software for Mac list because Intuit has taken their popular Quicken product and built an entirely new version for the Mac.

Mvelopes Personal – Mvelopes is popular online envelope budgeting software.  You can create electronic envelopes to manage your money.  Fund envelopes with your paycheck and transfer money between envelopes as needed.  Other features include a debt plan, bill pay and automatic download of your transactions from your financial institution.  The  frequently asked questions states the product will work with a Mac.

Liquid Ledger – Liquid Ledger, made specifically for a Mac, provides a robust set of features to manage your spending which include scheduling transactions, splitting transactions, detailed transaction information, the ability to import transactions and more.  There is a budgeting feature and you can generate reports and graphs to review your spending.  A free trial is available.

Fortora Fresh Finance – Fortora Fresh Finance is also specific money management software for a Mac that provides a robust set of budgeting and money management features.  Core features include budgeting, bill reminders, cash flow reports and the ability to import transactions from your bank.  A free trial is available.

Moneydance – Moneydance provides an overview page which lets you see all your account balances and upcoming or overdue transactions in one place.  There is a budgeting feature, ability to download transactions from your banks, graphing to review your spending and an iPhone application to manage your money on the go.  A free trial is available.

SplashMoney – SplashMoney provides the ability to automatically download you spending transactions from your bank along with providing the ability to create and manage a budget.  You can view all your transactions with handy icons established for each type of spending.  SplashMoney also has an iPhone app that synchronizes with the desktop version.  This software also works with the iPad!

Budget by SnowMint – Budget by Snowmint provides the ability to create a budget, manage transactions manually or import from your financial institution, set up reminders and track investments.  SnowMint also provides a deb reduction application as well as an iPhone app.  Free trials are available for all SnowMint products.

iCash – iCash by MaxProg provides all the basic functionality to help you control your expenses and track spending.  It can be used for personal or small business use with what seems to be a heavier emphasis on accounting software for a small business.  It has robust reporting and search features and includes the ability to manually import transactions from your financial institution.  A free trial is available.

I know I’ve probably missed some products that should be listed here in my best money management software for mac post.  I welcome your comments on any of these produces, or if you’ve found a product that has worked particularly well for you that’s not listed.

Certainly, some people still love managing money with pencil and paper.  If this is you, I say continue to do what works best for your situation!  But for those interested in the value software can bring to personal money management, you may appreciate reading reviews of the best money management software available today.

Mint – Mint is by far the most popular and well-known home money management software available today.  Mint brings all your financial information into one place which often includes savings, checking, investments, auto and mortgage.  You can set up a budget and track spending against financial goals.  Mint also helps you know how much money is left for each of your budget categories and it’s all accessible from your iPhone.  Mint also helps you save money by reviewing your spending and making recommendations.

You Need a Budget – YNAB is another excellent product that supports the good money management principle of planning your spending.  The software is based on 4 foundational rules:  1) Assign every dollar a job to take control of your money; 2) save for a rainy day; 3) roll with punches (replenish overspent categories with funds from other categories); 4) stop living paycheck to paycheck (defer earnings for next month to get ahead).  You can track your net worth, easily split spending transactions, import transactions from your bank accounts and schedule spending or bills that occur regularly.

YNAB – FREE 34 day trial

Mvelopes Personal – I’ve used Mvelopes for several years and it has yet to disappoint me as excellent personal money management software.  Mvelopes provides the ability to create electronic envelopes that work like the classic envelope budgeting system.  You fund your envelopes each month with your income.  Transactions are downloaded from your banks and assigned to envelopes, decreasing the balance as you spend.  With Mvelopes, you can transfer money from envelope to envelope, set up a debt repayment plan, use online bill pay and access Mvelopes from your mobile phone.

Quicken – Quicken is certainly one of the more well-known software packages providing a strong legacy of home money management software features.  It continues to serve money managers well with four different products that build upon each other:  Deluxe (basic money management), Premier (Deluxe + investment management), Home and Business and Rental Property Manager.  Quicken functionality includes budgeting, bank and credit card management, automatic transaction categorization, bill planning and investment tracking and performance against the market.  This is a solid choice with a well rounded set of money management features installed directly to your computer.

PocketSmith – PocketSmith has a unique approach of helping you budget while utilizing a calendar.  The calendar forecasts your cash flow needs into the future.  You can schedule all your financial events such as income, bill pay, other expenses and make them recur throughout each month as often as needed.  A lot of people prefer something visual, such as a calendar, when managing financial activities.  PocketSmith’s unique approach is appealing to a lot of people.

Moneydance – Moneydance provides a simple and easy to use interface to manage your money.  This product keeps it simple and straight forward with functionality that includes budgeting, online banking integration to download transactions, nice graphing to look at your money from a visual perspective, reminders, portfolio tracking, and an iPhone application to manage your money from anywhere.  Interestingly, this product scales quite well internationally with users in 75 countries!  Finally, the home page provides a comprehensive overview of your finances which includes account balances and upcoming expenses.

PearBudget – PearBudget was born out of a budgeting and spending tracking spreadsheet created by husband and wife.  It hit the internet and was an instant download success that led to the development of the web-based version.  Choose your own categories for your budget, manage regular and irregular spending, is based on classic envelopes budgeting, easy to use interface and includes a step by step guide to help you get started in 10 minutes.

Yodlee Money Center – Behind the scenes, Yodlee software is the engine for many financial institutions and account aggregation.  Mint used them before being sold to Intuit so you know it has a solid foundation.  It is an online budget tool that lets you view your expenses and income in one place.  You’ll get all the core money management features with this product including linking to your financial institutions, account balance tracking, net worth, budget creation, alerts, bill pay and a real estate center.  Yodlee does all the basics well and did I mention it is free?

AceMoney – AceMoney is a comprehensive personal finance manager that has features to help you manage personal finances at home or account for a small business.  It can download transactions from your financial institution, create and manage budgets, investment tracking and performance, can handle multiple currencies, bill tracking and plan your debt pay off and mortgage with debt calculators.  You can also budget by category, subcategory and set spending limits.

Perhaps you’ve used one or more of these products?  If so, which do you think is the best money management software?

Rather, the question we might consider asking is which option is a wiser decision from that of a financial steward’s perspective?  This perspective is focused on managing that which belongs to God wisely.  In this case, the resources being managed is the money required to meet the costs for a car or transportation.

We can answer the question better if we look at the pros and cons of both approaches and consider them next to each other.  Then, we’ll look at a summary from the results of analysis conducted by Edmunds.com.

Pros of leasing versus buying a car

Less cash

There is typically less money tied up in a lease.  You typically only need cash to pay the leasing fees.  Whereas buying a car typically requires a larger cash outlay for a down payment.

Depreciating asset

Leasing provides protection against a depreciating asset.  When you buy a car you own a depreciating asset which loses it’s value over time.

Lower payments

Sometimes there are lower monthly payments depending on which type of car you choose to lease.  Buying a new car is typically more expensive each month because of the payments and finance charges.

Cons of leasing versus buying car

Fees (early termination)

You may receive early termination fees if you decide to turn your car in before the lease ends.  When you buy, it’s your car until you decide to sell it.

More fees (wear and tear)

You have to pay fees for excess mileage or wear fees when you lease.  These can add up depending on how well you take care of your cars.  Obviously, you don’t have to worry about these extra fees when you buy a car.

Car payments forever

You’ll always have a car payment when you lease.  At the end of your car loan, however, you’ll be able to do with the vehicle as you wish.  You can continue to drive it or resell it.  With savings and what you receive from your car, you may eventually be able to work up to buying a car with cash.

Equity

Once a lease has run it’s course, you’re not left with any equity.  In buying a car, it will most likely have some value when you’re done with making all the payments.

Which approach saves more money?

If you’re interested in saving money, buying a car is definitely the best option.  According to an analysis at Edmunds.com, buying a car whether it is new or used  is more economical than leasing a car.

They did an interesting study in comparing the costs associated with buying a new car, used car, or leasing.  The used car scenario looked to be the best, leasing came in second  and buying a new car appeared to be the most expensive initially.

But, the study points out the people who bought cars own them and can benefit from the value in their cars.  They can benefit by continuing to drive them or reselling them. The person who leased the car had no equity. So, once they figured the value of the cars back into the new and used car costs, a different result was revealed.  Leasing became the most expensive in the long-run!

Final thoughts

In my opinion, deciding to lease versus buy boils down to whether you’re interested in saving money, or  focusing on managing your resources as wisely.

But some will still argue they want to lease because they enjoy driving new cars, they will just plan or budget a car payment forever, or they don’t have to worry about car maintenance.  These are silly reasons to lease considering the amount of money lost over time.

Many people are looking to minimize the money they spend on cars each month to contribute towards their financial goals.  Believe me, it is a great feeling to pay off a car loan and know that you can repurpose that money to save towards emergencies or build a car fund to one day purchase a car with cash.

What do you think about leasing versus buying a car?

Perhaps you need a guide to get on the right path.  Without a plan, or some sort of road map, it’s just too easy to get lost along the way.  And without having a plan in front of you it’s quite unlikely you’ll be able to stay on track.

I get excited when the subject of personal finance goals hits the table for discussion.  I love to think about the future when certain goals will be accomplished and our family will be a few steps closer to financial freedom.  That’s why out of excitement and just the need to have some personal accountability, I created my simple 5 year financial plan.  Yes, it’s simple and you can do it too!

I want to share more about my 5 year finanical plan with you because I think it can make a big difference in helping you make the next 5 years the most important in charting your course to financial freedom.

What is a 5 Year Financial Plan?

A 5 year financial plan captures all of the financial goals you will accomplish within the next 5 years.  For example, if you desire to become debt free, your plan will capture every payment required to pay off your debt.  If you’re trying to save for emergencies, it will capture every payment to your emergency fund.

Each goal gets assigned a column in a spreadsheet with the payments listed directly underneath.  As soon as one goal is accomplished, you roll your payments over to the next goal.  It’s very much like a debt snow ball.

The most important goals, or the goals you plan to achieve first, are placed in the columns furthest to the left.

How to Determine Your 5 Year Financial Goals

If you’re not sure where to start, one of the best ways to determine your 5 year financial goals is to look at either Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps or the Crown Money Map.  Identify the first goal you have not yet achieved using either of these two approaches and start there.

For example, if you haven’t saved $1000 in emergency savings, this will be your first goal in the plan (first column of payments) and so on.

How to Use the 5 Year Financial Plan

Once you have your goals identified and built into the plan you’ll see a true picture of what you can accomplish in 5 years.  For me, this was a lot of weight off my shoulders because it removed uncertainty around our family goals and also brought visibility to the next 5 years.

As long as we execute the payments, to ourselves (for savings) or to pay off debt, and other circumstances don’t impact our progress, we know what we can accomplish in those 5 years.

Of course, there will probably be some hiccups along the way.  If that’s the case, I’ll make a copy of my baseline plan and update or adjust it based on the hiccup.  Note: I always like to keep a copy of the original plan to see how my results compare.

For example, we might have to use some money from emergency savings for something.  This would take us off track in trying to pay off our remaining car loan.  That’s okay.  We would just delay paying of the car loan to build back up emergency savings and reflect that in our new plan.

Benefits of the 5 Year Financial Plan

There are probably more, but I think these are two key benefits:

1.  Since you will have a visual report of where you’ll be in 5 years.  Having the ability to look at every payment that will be allocated each month to your goals can be a tremendous motivator.

2.  It’s easy to look back and say “where did the time go.”  Often we waste the opportunity to accomplish our goals when they aren’t written.  The financial plan is your 5 year roadmap.  It can be started today and you can avoid wishing you had allocated your money differently 5 years down the road.

How to Create a 5 Year Financial Plan

There really is nothing to it!  I’ve created a simple template in Excel you can use for your plan.  It includes every month for the next 5 years starting in 2010.  I think this is a great way to kick off your New Year, don’t you?

Click here to download my 5 year financial planning template

The plan includes sample goals based on a few of the Crown Money Map goals, but feel free to download it and make it reflect your personal goals.  You may even come up with some better ideas or additional features.  If so, let me know so that I can share with others!

Note:  I’m providing this template completely free because it’s been such a big help to me.  Let me know in the comments if you like it or have ideas for improvement.