Taming personal finance

Why does finance turn normal human beings into boring, complexity-obsessed fiends? Used to be, you had a job and a pension -- you worked, you retired, and your company took care of your benefits. You cashed your pension check and wore fluorescent golf clothes. These days, you have to choose from three bazillion types of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, contribute your own money, and pick the investments.

Flex spending accounts, health insurance applications, tax returns--you can spend a lifetime trying to decide whether they save you money or deciphering their instruction booklets, which are written in your native language, but are totally incomprehensible. No need. They probably don't answer your questions anyway. The Medicare prescription plan is my favorite: more complicated than the space shuttle and designed for older folks (I'm getting hair-grayingly close) who have trouble remembering why they walked into a room.

Quicken can help you manage your finances, but  it's more of a trusty sidekick than advisor. You have to know what you want to do with your finances first. And then, how to record those transactions in the program.

In future posts, I'll explain how to manage your money wisely and how to wrangle Quicken into helping you do just that. And I'll do my best to help you have fun in the process.