 | May 4 2009 |
GREGM I finally feel comfortable removing Debt_Minder from my mac (yes, it was still running on Leopard) It does the job the way I want. The docs are in the help file. DM docs were on line *only* until the developer lost interest. I did find one minor "oops" in the docs, which I will notify the developer of.
(Version 3.0) | |
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| Oct 12 2008 |
JOI This program looks like a real winner. I just simply wish it had video on its website similar to MoneyWell http://nothirst.com/moneywell/ which shows you exactly how to use the program.
(Version 2.6.2) | |
| [ 2 Replies - Reply ] | |
Replies:
 | Dec 6 2008 |
ALEX B It only gets better, but I really wish it had some mac-like icons. For god sake, find some replacements. It makes the app look so dated. I tried to make some myself for you, but they didn't come out well. I also think the Debts, Income, and Expenses tabs should be updated to match the Accounts, Transfers, and Reports tabs. The same thing can be accomplished in a much cleaner interface than what is there now.
(Version 2.6.5) | |
 | May 6 2009 |
JIM_T_3 I finally actually did get off of my butt and add in a pretty long and involved introduction/tutorial to the application. It shows off most of the features, how to do many things, and demonstrates the utility.
(Version 3.0) | |
| Sep 30 2008 |
FROOBLOOP While still busy figuring this app out after having bought it after only a few minutes, it seems very cleverly and expertly done. That said, the one thing that worries me most as an international user is that it is very hard to figure out if your not perfectly fluent in banking English. There are no language localisations whatsoever. I had a little issue with Debtinator, and the developer got to it within seconds. The problem was solved within minutes in a small software update. This is crazy. So, big props out to this awesome developer. I also kind of like its documentation which was nicely written and quite easy to understand. A more detailed walk-through would be an appropriate complement to this application, though. It's not very expensive, that's true, but it's got lots of power sleeping under the hood. It would be a waste if I should have to leave it sleeping there just because I didn't get all the details.
(Version 2.6) | |
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| Aug 24 2008 |
TCN33 Downloaded this app and bought it after only ten minutes of testing. Initially had some odd results in reports, but a quick email to the developer resulted in a fix within hours. This app is going to save me $17,000 so it's well worth the $15 purchase price.
(Version 2.5.5) | |
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| Aug 24 2008 |
GLENDA Debtinator's non-judgmental, light-hearted attitude is exactly what I need to be able to face my finances. But it doesn't stop there! The philosophy behind the program is very sound: pay down the debt with the highest interest rate first, then add the amount of that payment to the debt with the next highest rate, and so on. But if you don't want to do that, the program has many other ways to help you attack the debt monster. It is dead-simple to use but also has advanced features that I don't _need_ to use yet. Best of all, the developer is extraordinarily responsive and courteous! In my opinion, this is an elegant, powerful app that does exactly what it says it will do and does it well. $15 is chump change for this level of service and usability!
(Version 2.5.5) | |
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| Jul 26 2008 |
IAN3 The best way to get out of debt is not to spend the money you don't have, multiple credit cards!!!
(Version 2.5.1) | |
| [ 2 Replies - Reply ] | |
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| Jul 26 2008 |
JIM_T_3 I try not to reply to comments like this, but every so often I feel like I must chime in. First of all, there are two types of debt out there. There's the debt you acquire by being reckless and living beyond your means. Rack up your credit cards buying crap you can't afford and you'll be in trouble. But there's also debt you acquire by living life. Buying a car? Probably need a car loan. A house? Almost definitely need a mortgage. College? Probably have student loans. What happens if you have a disaster? Car wreck? Medical bills? Your son is born with a birth defect and requires extensive care and treatment? Sure, everybody should have saved up thousands upon thousands of dollars to pay cash for their house and cover any medical bills that arise without issue, but here in the real world, that's not always the case. Regardless, whether your debt is due to your own reckless spending or not, what's wrong with taking some responsibility for yourself and paying it down? Properly managing your money can save you tens of thousands of dollars in interest payments. Of course, you'll need to keep yourself under control. If you keep running up your credit cards, you're going to be in trouble no matter what. But if you've stopped doing that and want to get things under control, it's not like the debt magically goes away once it's been created. Don't use your credit cards? That's great advice. Tell someone that has no debt. Once you've got it, though, it's extremely hard to get out. But blanket statements like saying that people just shouldn't use their credit cards and their debt magically vanishes is juvenile and counter productive. Props to you if you have no debt to manage and no money in interest payments to save. For the rest of us? Leave the software tools alone and let people get on with their lives.
(Version 2.5.1) | |
| Jul 27 2008 |
IAN3 Yes sorry, i agree with you fully in those situations, my comment was really directed to djc0 with his comment of "how long it will take me to pay down my multiple credit cards", housing and car loans etc. are a different "kettle of fish"
(Version 2.5.1) | |
| Sep 13 2007 |
DJC0 This is a great program and does exactly what i want: project how long it will take me to pay down my multiple credit cards with different repayment plans and changing financial situation. I know it does a whole lot more, but for now thats enough for me. Seeing the "I'm free!" date and how much interest i've saved is a great motivator to stay on track and even put in a little more when i can. I had a small problem and emailed the developer. He repsonded within the hour (and it was a public holiday!), and within the week had posted a new verson correcting the issue. That kind of service is worth the meager price alone! (Anyone who has ever gotten bad service knows this all too well!) Highly recomended for those who want tighter control over their debt.
(Version 2.2.7) | |
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| Aug 15 2007 |
MATTHEW BAUER What a great little program. It is exactly what I have been looking for. All you do is type in everything from your income, your monthly expenses, and your debts and bam! The hardest part is being honest with yourself. Very useful!
(Version 2.2.4) | |
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| Jun 23 2007 |
ALEX B You probably spend $15 a day on breakfast and lunch anyway. I guess cheapskates don't need financial help anyway since they don't spend money to begin with.
(Version 2.1.6) | |
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| May 19 2007 |
FAHLMAN I have a mortgage, car payment, car insurance, health insurance, life insurance, home insurance, etc and I'll second the first post. Prioritize your finances. Get rid of cable television, broadband internet, dinner out every other night, lunch at the nearest fast food joint every weekday, live in a reasonable house (which also has the side of lowering not only your mortgage but also the home insurance premium), drive a reasonable car (again not only does this reduce your loan payment, but reduces your car insurance also). People live way outside their means and then complain that they're poor. It's only their own fault.
(Version 2.1.3) | |
| [ 3 Replies - Reply ] | |
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| May 19 2007 |
JIM_T_3 I think this reply is kinda missing the point. You're already saying that you have a mortgage and a car payment. That's two debts right there. Are you paying them down in the most efficient fashion possible? Namely, are you putting every spare cent you have towards paying them off? Which one are you paying off first? What about when one's paid off? Then what are you doing with the money that was going to it? Do you have any other debts? How do those factor in? What's the most efficient way to pay 'em off? Do any of the interest rates vary? When? By how much? How does that factor into a payment schedule? The program's designed to help you find every spare cent you have. "Spare cent" meaning "unallocated". So if you don't want to pay for cable television, broadband internet, dinner out every other night, and so on, then don't do it. But where's that money going instead? I mean, you may have a budget where you earn $X per month and spend exactly the same $X per month, and that's cool. But most people don't track to that extreme a level. They get mostly close enough. If you're already tracking where every single penny you have goes, then bully for you, and you've forecasted out tracking every single penny until all of your debts are paid off, so you know where everything's going and when everything'll be paid off, then bully for you. You're right, you don't need it. But I'm willing to bet that most people are more like me. Me? Sure, I have debt. Mortgage, 2 car payments, a credit card with a small balance from an emergency a while back. All very small, very low interest rates. So all these posts here telling me that I should get lower rates or only pay for the essentials, well, I'm already doing it. I'm still saving a fortune by tracking how I'm paying everything. Telling people to not acquire debt or to only acquire small amounts with small interest rates is _not_ the entire solution. It's part of it (a big part!) but the rest of it is better planning with what you have. The program helps with the better planning.
(Version 2.1.3) | |
| Jul 7 2007 |
HARRISTYPE You seemingly contradict yourself here. Big debts are your first two items. And broadband internet? Did you post your comment from dial-up, or did you use one the computers at your local library?
(Version 2.1.9) | |
| Jul 14 2007 |
JOELSCHMIDT2 Ignore Fahlman. He's probably just upset that Basset Software wrote this program before he could.
(Version 2.2) | |
| May 15 2007 |
ALEX B I just wanted to ammend my original review. I meant to set Ease of Use to 5, but set it to 3 by mistake since I set Features to 3. I should add that I chose 5 for Ease of User because all you had to do was create an entry on each pane (you could probably even leave some out) in the program and the last two panes (Reports and Graphs) would show you the results. Couldn't be simpler. My other ratings are self explanatory. The main rating is the average of 4.5 rounded up since I couldn't choose 4.5 as a rating. You can even export your payment schedule to iCal!
(Version 2.1.2) | |
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| May 14 2007 |
ALEX B Is planning a budget that works to help you get out of debt your main concern? Then look no further because Debtinator does exactly that and no more. I set up a budget for my brother and printed it out for him so he would know what to do and when. I input an income, mortgage, monthy bills, taxes, credit cards and set an allotment for extra cash that would most likely get spent throughout the week amongst a handful of other items to take into account. It said that he would still be paying off his mortgage in 50 years and to go back and try to make some changes. I added that I only wanted to pay a maximum on certain bills of double the minimum payment as well as a few other changes and the results were astonishing. He could be financially secure, out of debt and have cash in his savings account by 2013! Almost 5 1/2 years and he could be living well planning for his future! This seems to be the only program I found that can handle changes in interest rates at specific dates per account. It even tells you how much your monthly interest is. I have tried iBank, Cha-Ching, Jumsoft Money and a couple others. Though I don't like the interface much because of it's lack of mac appeal, it does everything it said it would and well. I was able to get a good outlook on my future as well with this and it really makes you feel like you can accomplish it. And $15 dollars? That is a VERY fair price. It seems like the developer really kept his user's in mind when he decided upon the price. If you can complain about spending $15 dollars to help set up a budget that can help you become financially stable, why hesitate? An accountant would do something very similar and charge much, much more (despite the fact that an accountant also helps you plan your retirement and so on). He was very generous when other programs of a similar nature cost more. That said, this program helped me out immensely and was exactly what I needed. The developer is also very responsive and takes your ideas into consideration. I sent him like 10 e-mails and he got back to me on all of them! Best bang for your buck. What Debtinator lacks is a interface and some features that other programs such as Cha-Ching and Jumsoft Money offer. But Debtinator is not a fully featured money management program and it makes no such claims, which is why it is at the TOP of it's class in this category. I can't stress enough how excited I was to see the results of using this program.
(Version 2.1.2) | |
| [ 1 Reply - Reply ] | |
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| May 15 2007 |
JIM_T_3 Actually, maximum payments aren't required to keep you from going bankrupt, the program's smart enough to pay as much as it can, but never so much that it can't cover the future. If you set a maximum payment of $500, but can actually affor $600 w/o going bankrupt, the app will still only send $500 and keep that extra $100 in the bank. If you can only afford $400 in a month, it'll only send $400, regardless of the max. I put in the maximum payments option for cases where you have a debt in the middle of a reporting option that you want to "skip over". For instance, your mortgage may have the 3rd highest interest rate of your debts, but you don't want to overpay on it ever, figuring that your money is better invested elsewhere. So you can set a maximum payment on the mortgage and then it'll get skipped over when a report is determining who to overpay. That way, you can run any report you want and it won't be overpaid. But to keep you from going bust? Maximum payments aren't necessary in that case.
(Version 2.1.2) | |
| Apr 25 2007 |
DAVID ASCH If the software recognised that the dollar is not the only currency in the world, I may take a closer look!
(Version 2.1.0) | |
| [ 2 Replies - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| Apr 27 2007 |
JIM_T_3 Excellent suggestion. That'll be in 2.1.1, at least support for using the currency specified in the International control panel. Dates are still going to be formatted in US m/d/y style, since that's going to take a bit more twiddling, but I'll do my best to add it into a future release.
(Version 2.1) | |
| Apr 27 2007 |
DAVID ASCH That's great, thanks.
(Version 2.1) | |
| Jan 21 2007 |
JIMMYP I usually buy this type of software based upon what other users have said. Well, it is now $15 and how can I get out of debt by spending money as one reply mentioned. The replys I read were all negative, whether salted or not, so based upon these posts, I will not buy this product.
(Version 2.0) | |
| [ 2 Replies - Reply ] | |
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| Jan 21 2007 |
YNOT This is a pretty crazy way to evaluate anything - just based upon a few reviews, few of which even evaluate the program. Try using the program to evaluate it before blindly stating you are not going to purchase it based upon the reviews.
(Version 2.0) | |
| May 14 2007 |
ALEX B That is one of the most idiotic things I have read in a long while. I apologize for putting it so bluntly, but with a statement such as yours, this seems the most likely type of response to help you realize how absurd that is. You need to actually try this program out and see if it does what you need and if it does it to your liking.
(Version 2.1.2) | |
| Apr 26 2005 |
REVFC Easy to use, helps with scheduling you debt reduction with an actual plan that works, if you stick to it. For instance it showed that depending if I paid my highest interest rate credit card off first compared to paying off the lowest balance first that I would save about a year in paying off all my credit cards. Would like to see pie or bar charting (or both) that would give total interest paid to each card with different payoff methods. Also to show the actual and declining balances in graph form.
(Version 1.2.1) | |
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| Jun 15 2004 |
ANONYMOUS Here's an easy to way to get out of debt: 1. Cancel your credit cards except for one with a low interest rate. You may need it for a tow-truck, medical bill or the next version of XBOX. 2. Pay cash for everything (or use bank debit cards, check cards), if you can't afford it - you don't need it. That's about it.
(Version 1.1.1) | |
| [ 2 Replies - Reply ] | |
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| Jan 21 2007 |
YNOT This assumes one has the ability to shift payments to those low interest cards you talk about. For others that may not have this option, this is actually a pretty good program to get them to that point of getting a low interest card so they can shift it all over.
(Version 2.0) | |
| Feb 24 2007 |
AQTINC The first post above was spoken like a real high school student who knows nothing about carrying a mortgage, paying for 2 cars, sending arrogant kids to college, paying for 7 kinds of insurance to cover a family, or handle any kind of family emergency short of calling a tow truck. Any person that thinks that one can realistically go through life without carrying some level of debt either has no practical life experience yet; has an income level so low that shouldn't have any debt, or has an income level so high that 10's or 100's of thousands of dollars of expected, unplanned, or unavoidable life costs is still chump change. For the 90% of the rest of us, managing debt is an unavoidable reality of lie. It's OK to disagree with someone, but spare us the venom and snied attitude when you obviously have no worthwhile experience base from which to form your opinion.
(Version 2.0.4) | |
| Jun 6 2004 |
JUST CURIOUS If this product really works, why you have to use it forever?
(Version 1.0.1) | |
| [ 4 Replies - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| Jun 12 2004 |
Cuz it takes forever to get outta debt? (-:
(Version 1.1) | |
| Feb 17 2007 |
BURAN $15!
(Version 2.0.3) | |
| Feb 24 2007 |
AQTINC ...because no software can overcome one's stupidity and propensity for getting into trouble with debt. People that use debt improperly, almost always repeat the same mistakes that got them in a tough spot to begin with.
(Version 2.0.4) | |
| May 15 2007 |
ALEX B Over time you will find yourself in situations where you have to spend money unexpectedly (car broke down, medical bills, moving expenses, who knows what else) and it happens all the time. You can then go into Debtinator and make adjustments and see what the outcome would be.
(Version 2.1.2) | |
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