|Does this mean that you have given up on Quicken for tracking everything? 
Ar
  |you using Excel in addition to Quicken? I basically use Quicken for
  |everything.
  |I use the NAIC Toolkit program for selecting stocks and Morningstar On 
Flopp
  |to select mutual funds.
I started out using Quicken but found it to be agrivating in many
respects. After learning to use Excel 4, I found it much easier and more
logical to set up spreadsheets for tracking my checking, savings, and
credit card accounts. Now, I have complete control of the layout,
colors, format, font, formulas, content, and printing layout. To answer
your question, yes, I use a combination of Excel & Quicken. The only
thing I use Quicken for is dividends & cap-gains reports at tax time.
As time went on, I continued to read three different books on using
Excel and have become proficient at using it. The sheets have been
changed, altered, and improved as my level of learning continues.
Also, built linked sheets for Tax projections that mimic the 1040,
Sked-B, and Sked-D. My Sked-D sheet (Cap. Gains) looks almost like the
actual IRS form but has 10 spaces provided for short-term entries.
I have yet other sheets for tracking Money Market accounts, Bond funds,
and Mutual funds. Data from these sheets are linked to a sheet I call
"Funds_95" which gives a broad view of key figures of everything I
track.
By using the Paste/Link feature, data from the Funds_95 sheet provides
input for both the Sked-D & Sked-B sheets. Those in turn provide data
for the 1040 sheet. In other words, as I update information such as
buys, sells, dividends, cap-gains on a fund, it has a ripple effect on
other sheets working it's way to the 1040. I keep running totals of
income, taxes paid, dividends, cap-gains, etc. so all I have to do at
tax time is check the figures on W2's and 1099's. Of course, changes
in the tax law plus the new tax tables have to be injected into my
system after the IRS booklets for the current year are mailed out.
DB| RJ> Are you an Excel user? Perhaps we could share some sheets ???
  |Yes, I am an Excel user, but I never really learned to do anything with
  |macros
  |or some of (make that most of) the functions that Excel has. I do use 
xcel
  |quite often for many things. The most complicated spreadsheet I ever made 
wa
  |when I was trying to decide if I could really afford to retire at the age
  |of 52
I went through the same thing. The company I worked for (Ameritech)
became a "baby bell" after the breakup of the BellSystem. It was Ohio
Bell until Ameritech came along and ruined it. Things really got bad;
they closed dept. after dept. and then started chopping people. Then,
they hired new people off the street for 6 bucks. That's when I decided
to bail out. My friends who wanted to get out but did not have enough
time tell me the place really sux bad and they are doing the job of
three to five people. They really hate it and say I did the right thing
by taking early retirement. We are about the same age... I'm 51 and was
with the telephone Co. for just 23 years. Do you know how to annuitize
your IRA account, avoid the 10% penality, before age 59 1/2? You can do
it yourself without buying an annuity contract. You just divide your IRA
balance on Dec. 31 each year by your age factor. You get the age factor
from the IRS pub. on IRA accounts. I also built an Excel sheet to do
this... you just plug in the balance and it projects what you can draw
penality free for various ages.....
  |(so far so good). That spreadsheet had every income and expense 
ossibility
  |that I could think of built into it with growth factors applied liberally.
  |If I have anything you are interested in Ray i'd be glad to share.
Ok, great. Do you have PKZ204G so we can send compressed files? If
you're a little rusty with Excel, I'll be glad to help you come up to
speed. Which version do you have? I have Excel 4.0a and Quicken 4.0. The
books I use are Osborne/McGraw-Hill "Excel 4 for Windows" and Que "Using
Excel 4 for Windows"
--Raymond
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