Quicken 2009: The Missing Manual

Chapter 13. Planning with Quicken Tools

Whether you tend to scratch out your schedule on a napkin or prepare a minute-by-minute plan for your “spontaneous” vacation, the Quicken Planning menu has tools for you. The program’s planning calculators are quick and easy to use. They ask for a few bits of info and then spit out a result like how much you have to save each year for retirement, what you can afford to pay in college costs, or whether it makes sense to refinance your mortgage. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to fill in the fields and calculate different results.

But if only a thorough analysis will do, Quicken’s planning wizards step you through planning for major goals like retiring, paying for your kid’s college education, owning a home, or getting out of debt. These wizards ask for lots of financial details, but most of the steps and the info you give them are pretty straightforward. In fact, the planning wizards all work from the same financial details; once you’ve told Quicken about your planning assumptions, each wizard uses the same info, so you don’t have to enter it over and over.

This chapter gives you an overview of these planning tools and what they can help you do. You’ll learn the types of info you have to provide, how to enter and edit your financial details, and how to review the results. Once you know how to use the planning wizards, they can help you achieve the peace of mind that comes with knowing you’re on track to reach your financial goals—or at least ...