My major tool in my Financial Planning activities is my computer. I use it to track my spending, I use it to make up financial plans for the coming time, and I use it to analyze my spending habits, all in all a very powerful tool for me.

My wife prefers to use pen and paper because she likes to see the spending and such, and if that is the way you work, I have no problem with that either. It takes a little longer, but maybe when it takes longer you might notice and absorb more information from the data entry side of things.

Financial Tools

My major tools that I use (I am not endorsing these computer tools, I am simply pointing this out to be complete) are:

1. Quicken, first and foremost this is the tool I use to keep track of spending and attempt to report trends and such. A very powerful tool, that I still don’t think I am using completely correctly.
2. Tax software, in this case Quicktax, but only because it is so simple when I do it this way and I can E-file my taxes which is quicker and easier for me. I also use that tool to infuriate myself figuring out what might happen if the Government supported Income Splitting.
3. Excel or whatever spreadsheet you like. I like to extract data from Quicken and then use it for some elementary calculations and forecasts in Excel. Excel has some very powerful financial functions, but make sure you are using the Canadian versions for Interest calculations and such.
4. Powerpoint, to present information easily to my wife or to my banker, if I am going in to try to get Free Banking
5. Internet Explorer or a browser for On line banking, and thanks to my PC I no longer walk into my local branch weekly to get my banking updates, I get them daily on line. This is an amazing capability that we take for granted that didn’t exist 20 years ago.