Stupidest Purchase of the Year

No offense to the makers of the product, but my stupidest purchase of 2010 is Quicken.

Not that it's not a perfectly nice program.

But I don't pay any bills using it.  I haven't updated my accounts with it in at least 3 months, and I have never used it to balance my checkbook.  I didn't itemize my taxes this year, let alone use Quicken to identify my tax-refundable purchases.

Beyond the first week, when I imported historical bank account info and used it to analyze my spending habits (which, admittedly, was faster then manually plugging it into a spreadsheet), I have not used it for "budgeting" purposes.

I continue to use the spreadsheet I designed when I had no other choice because I couldn't afford computer programs.

I LIKE the spreadsheet I designed.  It provides the information I want, but not so much information as to give me overload.

When I was so broke I couldn't afford ANYTHING, I found a way to track every penny (granted, I spent as few as possible.).  I didn't but anything for that task, though. I used half-filled notepads and packages of Post-It notes I'd collected over the previous 10 years.  The back of the page-a-day calendar pages became worksheets for how much I could send to my credit card that week or month.   I used pens I'd collected for free at who-knows-how-many events over the years.
Spending nothing, I paid off old purchases, I paid cash for current purchases, I put money away for future purchases.

It's so much easier for me now ~ I no longer have to worry about old purchases at all.

And I am not out of free pens and pads of paper yet, either.

I thought I was making a wise choice when I purchased Quicken along with my new computer, but I was forgetting a cardinal rule ~ Keep It Simple.

According to e-mails from the manufacturer, by the way, this program I bought mere months ago is already outdated and I am falling behind every week I delay purchasing the 2011 upgrade.