<p>Our D has recently finished a grad program and is in the process of studying for Board exams, applying for a job, and likely will move across country this year. She has never had to file a tax return before (volunteer work, stipends, low paying jobs).</p>
<p>This year, I’m thinking that due to significant expenses (moving, job search, international medical mission trip) not to mention major student loan interest, that she should develop a good system to track expenses that may be tax deductible for the Tax Year 2011. I don’t know yet whether it will be advantageous/appropriate for her to itemize, but it will be good for her to understand which receipts to save, what information to save, etc. She is a true neophyte in terms of financial awareness beyond managing her own checking account, student loans, and paying her bills. </p>
<p>I am looking for a simple book, easy to use software program, or website, that will help her organize her financial life this year to prepare for all this–something more geared to a young adult starting out. (I’m not familiar with all the tools that might be out there although I used Quicken once and utilize a basic turbo tax program every year.)</p>
<p>The key word is SIMPLE. Most of this financial world is a foreign language to her–tax deductions, withholding, etc. If the information is too complicated, it 1) probably won’t apply to her and/or 2) won’t be a resource she’ll likely use, which is, of course, the point.</p>
<p>I have utmost confidence in CC and the breadth of knowledge that exists here. This is my go-to resource. So thanks in advance for your ideas/suggestions!</p>
<p>Since she is younger and just starting out and I’m assuming technologically inclined maybe she could look into signing up for Mint.com. It’s owned by quicken and is basically a scaled down, free, online version of it. You can link all of your accounts to it and it tracks your spending for you. You can set up spending goals on it as well. I actually track everything in quicken. I love it… I have my accounts set up in it and it literally tracks everything for me… I have my 401k in it and everything. I have tried Mint and it’s a nice system… just doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of my quicken.</p>
<p>The things I <em>keep</em> through out the year are any receipts from donations that I make as well as for any home improvements that I do (just in case they qualify for anything.), medical costs, etc. My student loan sends me a year end statement showing how much interest I paid through out the year. My mortgage does the same thing. I also get statements from my banks telling me how much interest they paid me throughout the year. </p>
<p>I personally do my taxes online at a website called freetaxusa.com It’s extremely simple to use and very intuitive. It starts out asking for your W2 information. It will flat out tell you “look at box A, enter number here. Look at box b, enter number here, etc.”. Then it moves on to other things - Kind of like an interview - Do you have any bank accounts that you made interest on? If yes, you enter the bank information and your interest numbers. Do you have any student loans? If yes, you enter that information, etc. Do you own a house? if yes, do you have a mortgage, if yes how much did you pay in interest, taxes, etc. It takes you through a giant list of what is income, what are deductible expenses, etc. If I remember right it tells you if you are better itemizing or not itemizing but I’m not 100% sure on that. Chances are if she has a lot of student loan interest she’s probably better itemizing, I think… I always was anyway. It’s a nice system and it’s free for federal filing.</p>
<p>This is not a package or a method, but I would strongly suggest that she start listening to the Marketplace Money podcast available for free from American Public Media every week. She can just search in iTunes and subscribe. Over the course of a year they cover a large number of financial topics. It is quite interesting, and she will learn a lot. I have been listening for many years (it used to be called Sound Money), and have learned most of what I know about personal finance from this show. And I have managed to pay for private high school/LAC for two kids as a divorced parent with no help from the ex and without any loans, so they must be giving some good advice :)</p>
<p>I do use Quicken for tracking my finances. And Turbotax for taxes. Just me, I don’t like keeping my financial info “out in the cloud”, as you do when you use an online site for money management or tuaxes.</p>
<p>Quicken, imo, makes it easy and almost “fun” to balance a checking account (if anyone even bothers with that any more).</p>
<p>Quicken and TurboTax really cover all of the bases. Quicken is simple, imo. It has many many features that she may or may not use, but she can “grow” into them if she ever wants to use them.</p>
<p>I’d never heard of mint.com and will definitely check it out. I do share intparent’s concerns about putting all the info out there “in the cloud”, but still, this might be helpful.</p>
<p>It also sounds like I need to take a 2nd look at Quicken. I used it once, maybe 15 years ago and probably should have stuck with it. Our own finances are pretty disorganized!</p>
<p>Is the Marketplace Money program part of NPR’s broadcasts? I don’t know if D will bother with listening to this, but I’m certainly intrigued. Thanks for the suggestion.</p>
<p>Can anyone recommend any particular books that are really good for someone this age starting out? I’ve looked at a few, but frankly don’t consider myself well informed enough to know which ones are giving the best quality, truly useful advice. For example, some say to never take on student loan debt. Too late, as she unfortunately will have very large loans from grad school.</p>
<p>Anyway, keep the suggestions coming. These are great!</p>
<p>I’ve also been looking for personal finance books that are good for young people just starting out. I decided to read them first myself, to see if I thought my kids would take to them.</p>
<p>The only one I have actually read so far is Get a Financial Life, by Beth Kobliner. I’ve read good things about it, but I thought it was a little too dry and detailed for my kids; I just couldn’t see them actually reading the whole book.</p>
<p>Another book I have heard good things about is I Will Teach You To Be Rich, by Ramit Sethi. The title is a bit too gimmicky for my taste, but from reviews I have read, I think it might be good. Although I have downloaded it to my Kindle, I haven’t read it yet. I will post back when I have read it!</p>
<p>I’ve been researching mint.com for some time. After searching my main bank’s websites this weekend, I decided to forgo mint.com and use my bank’s downloading services and keep using Excel. I think this generation of tech savvy adults are more than capable of organizing their expenses without the incremental risk of exposing their online presence to include financial information.</p>
<p>When the time comes, I’m going to show DS a redacted paycheck that shows the difference between gross pay and net pay, including deductions for Fed, State, Medicare, FICA, 401k, Medical, Dental, etc, to reinforce cash flow.</p>
<p>I remember the first paycheck I received post graduation. Called my Dad and complained bitterly. “What is a FICA?”. He chuckled and welcomed me to the real world.</p>