Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 14 years and 10 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

Don’t worry, they’re making plenty of cash, but Microsoft announced this week that they will no longer be producing their personal finance software, Microsoft Money.

This makes me sad as I’ve been an MS Money user for about 13 years! I switched from CA Kiplinger’s  Simply Money to Microsoft Money 97 back in 1996 and have faithfully purchased upgrades every other year around tax time. I use it to download all of my bank, credit card, and brokerage statements, pay bills, balance the checkbook, generating spending reports, etc.

Microsoft says that more people are using their banks’ own websites and services nowadays so maintaining a standalone software package just isn’t worth it. That’s fine, and I do use my own bank’s or credit card provider’s web sites, but I like having everything consolidated in one place. When my current version of Money Plus expires in Feburary next year, I’m going to lose that convenience. Sure, the software will still work and I can manually enter transactions, but I won’t be able to use any of the online features. Instead, I’ll have to jump around to different web sites. On the bright side, if I move my finances into the cloud (scary though that is, from a security standpoint), I won’t have to deal with installing and activating Money on multiple PCs and then not having access to it when I’m on one of my Linux machines.

I’ve got 8 months to figure out my next step: maybe an online service line mint.com or switch to Quicken? Time to start researching alternatives. 🙁