Chapter 17. Managing Your Finances

In This Chapter

• Setting Up Your Accounts

• Navigating Money

• Managing Your Bank Account

• Banking Online

Most new computers come with at least one personal finance program installed. That program might be Microsoft Money, or it might be Intuit's Quicken. You can use either of these programs to manage your household budgets, track your bank accounts and investments, write checks, and even pay your bills online.

Both Money and Quicken work similarly, but for the purposes of this book we'll focus on Microsoft Money 2005, because it's fully integrated into the Microsoft Works Suite program. (If you prefer to use Quicken, you'll perform the same operations as described here; make sure you follow that program's specific instructions.)