What basic, personal accounting software do you recommend? I would like to track: • income • retirement accounts • out-come, i.e. spending on credit cards and ATM debits This would preferably be done automatically — the software will contact the banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions electronically and download as much information as possible. We're eight years into the 21st C. and it doesn't seem necessary to spend one to two hours a day manually tracking and entering the day's business-related what-have-yous. I don't hold investments, but if I gamble I would like to start gambling somewhat intelligently. The software would track investment accounts — and existing retirement account components — automatically on a daily basis. In particular, I'd like to be able to view how parts of my retirement account are valued on a daily basis, which I can't do currently without manually tracking its history in an Excel spreadsheet.

Our bank account was debited for a check issued by a different bank. What in tarnation? I gave my doctor a $20 check issued from my Small Town Bank account, check number 1234. My Small Town Bank website informs me that we were debited for $57, allegedly from check #1234. When I click to view the image of the check, it shows a check from someone else's Chase bank account! The name is different, the routing number is different, the bank is different, the account number is different, the check number is different, the amount is different. The only connection is that both checks were payable to the same doctor.

FinanceFilter: Is the money supply contracting, or expanding, after netting all the Fed action, bank closures, mortgage defaults, etc? The dollar falling seems to signal a net increase of money supply, but this is inconsistent with the thesis of a credit or liquidity crunch. If the money supply is growing at a slower rate due to tighter lending practices, shouldn't the dollar be rising, even in the face of Fed-rate cutting? Do we know the net expansion or contraction of the money supply due to the combination of rate cuts and mortgage defaults? I understand that Fed rate cuts have the effect of increasing the money supply. I understand that lower rates lower the value of the dollar, because it puts more dollars into existence tomorrow than existed today, i.e. given a constant demand, the increase of supply lowers the price.

Seattle: Please recommend a great bank or hopefully credit union Hello All, We just moved to just south of Seattle. Will likely be moving much closer if not into Seattle proper or north Seattle in the next few months. I am looking for a great bank or ideally full service credit union. I have a couple needs: 1. Personal checking 2. Business checking and saving 3. Have to have EXCELLENT customer service. ie. I want to be able to email and or call managerial level people at the bank directly once in a great while. Do not want to deal with a central answering service in India. CANNOT deal with large monolithic "you are a number" impersonal banks.

Seattle: Please recommend a great bank or hopefully credit union Hello All, We just moved to just south of Seattle. Will likely be moving much closer if not into Seattle proper or north Seattle in the next few months. I am looking for a great bank or ideally full service credit union. I have a couple needs: 1. Personal checking 2. Business checking and saving 3. Have to have EXCELLENT customer service. ie. I want to be able to email and or call managerial level people at the bank directly once in a great while. Do not want to deal with a central answering service in India. CANNOT deal with large monolithic "you are a number" impersonal banks.

I'm on my mother's checking account (in case of emergency, i believe as just someone who can access it - but not jointly {if that makes sense}) and she bounced a check. What effect does this have on me? I'm wondering if her bouncing a check (or checks possibly) on an account I was added to will have adverse effects on me (credit, etc.) Thanks MeFi'ers

Any reason not to open a couple more bank accounts for all the gifts/rewards/incentives they offer? Right now I have an old bank account from California (checking and savings) and a credit card attached to it which I use frequently, a new bank account for the city I moved to, which doesn't have any branches of my old bank (checking only), and a credit card with a third bank, that I only use a couple of times a year. This more than covers any banking needs I would actually have, but a number of local banks are offering various incentives to open an account, most enticingly, 75 dollars in free groceries if I set one up.

Do most people try negotiating near the end of a teaser rate? When we bought our home last year, we went with a one-year teaser rate, to be followed by a variable or fixed rate based on prime minus X. The time on the teaser rate will expire in a few months. Someone I met recently suggesting negotiating before locking in -- she works for a branch of our bank and said we should try to get a better rate, now that we've had a mortgage with the bank for a while. I was wondering how to go about doing this and whether it is normal. (I'm no longer in touch with this person, who I met during a course.)

Help me figure out the best way to finance graduate school abroad. This may be a bit of a premature post (as I haven't heard back from all of my institutions yet), but here it goes anyway... I will be attending graduate school in Japan this fall (getting an MA in international relations). Though I already have some money saved up, it isn't nearly enough to cover everything (not just tuition, but living costs, food, transport, etc). In all likelihood, I will be getting some portion of my tuition discounted by the university, and will also be able to hold a part-time job on campus in addition to some teaching assistantships. Regardless, this is only a minor amount of money coming in, compared with how much will be going out.

Help me figure out the best way to finance graduate school abroad. This may be a bit of a premature post (as I haven't heard back from all of my institutions yet), but here it goes anyway... I will be attending graduate school in Japan this fall (getting an MA in international relations). Though I already have some money saved up, it isn't nearly enough to cover everything (not just tuition, but living costs, food, transport, etc). In all likelihood, I will be getting some portion of my tuition discounted by the university, and will also be able to hold a part-time job on campus in addition to some teaching assistantships. Regardless, this is only a minor amount of money coming in, compared with how much will be going out.