Thu 4 Oct 2007
Not coincidentally, I first started paying attention to my investments around the time Moneydance gained support for tracking them. Keeping all of my investment records in Moneydance forced me to pay attention to the transactions, fees and securities. Alan Haft has posted a nicely written set of guidelines for investing that I think are very helpful.
My favorite, predictably, is this one:
5. Watch your money
No one else will ever keep track of your money like you will. Don’t get lazy and stop paying attention. Read your statements every month and monitor your progress and returns. This is your hard earned money we’re talking about, and don’t ever forget that.
via boboroshi, who also happens to have designed moneydance.com and is an incredibly enthusiastic Moneydance user.
October 5th, 2007 at 5:54 am
I can’t say I agree with the first law of Mr Haft’s new decalogue. The golden lads and lasses of the pension industry ‘managed’ my Managed Fund quite well in line with the indices in the couple of years after 2000. I wish they hadn’t. However, I do agree with his fifth law and I do now try to follow it faithfully. So a couple of months ago I transferred out of the Managed Fund into one much less interesting.
I’ve only been using Moneydance for a couple of days. So far I very much like it. It does what I want it to do, without trying to second-guess me. My experience of preparing accounts goes back to the days when, although the go-ahead office that employed me did possess a solitary electro-mechanical adding-machine, the apprentices were obliged to to the job by hand. A pity the currency had just been decimalised, as counting in twelves and twenties did at least offer some variety. I forced myself to get an MCSE a few years back so I’m not a complete luddite. But I do like software that is not too ‘busy’.
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