Thanks for the comments. You guys have convinced me. I think the main 2
reasons I was thinking about starting fresh were
1) Issues with data integrity in the past, which I wanted to leave behind.
It seems that things have gotten more stable, or at least MSFT has provided
some repair tools to un-fubar data files.
2) Size of the backup not fitting on a floppy. I don't even use floppies any
more, but I don't want to have a bunch of burnt CDs sitting around every
couple weeks either. I hadn't even thought of using something like a thumb
drive.

Except for investment information, which has an obvious use going forward, I
am unlikely, I think, to fill in all the blanks between now and when I last
used Money. Too hard to get the other data and not that useful. Most of my
net worth is in investment data anyways - the only important transactions in
my checking account are transfers every now and then when it gets too big,
into the brokerage account.

Thanks again everyone.
Steve

Agreed. Enter a balancing transaction and continue on. Download as much
data as you can right away and fill in any gaps later manually when/if you
get energetic!

Never kiss off data and never archive anything. Keep all of your Money data
in one big file. Disc space is cheap and Money is a database program
designed to work well with a big data file. Fill in the missing data as you
have time. I am 62 and I can't tell you how many times old Money data has
helped me. I manually typed in over 10 years of data to fill in for the
years before I started using Money. That was a long time ago and I went
back to the early days when our kids were babies.

As time goes by you will learn more uses for Money but you need the data to
get anything out of Money. Money's bills and deposits schedule, cash flow
tool and other reports allow you to plan and run your life with very precise
control of your finances.

Regards

Bill Wood



"wongp235" <wongp235[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:84A73DC7-8FA0-4DA8-862D-776ACDD8BB51[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I have something similar at my bank already. I don't know if yodlee keeps
historical data, but my bank's version does not. But on the other hand, the
existence of said application quite possibly had something to do with why I
stopped keeping up with Money in the first place. (That and a computer crash.
I had a backup file but it took me a long time to get everything reinstalled
and whatnot.)

"Dick Watson" wrote:
- quote -

Upgrade and balance I say. This way you get to keep your six years worth of
data and you still have the opportunity to "fill in the blanks" as and when
you have the data and inclination to do so. You can even do the "filling in"
in a progressive and on a selective basis, concentrating on data that is of
more use to you e.g. investment transactions for the stocks that you're still
holding. The "balancing" account can be adjusted each time you "fill in".

"Steve" wrote:

- quote -

Perhaps you should consider Yodlee or one of the similar "aggregation"
products.

"Steve" <Steve[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FB4FA0AD-9C9F-4A91-9A58-F31BAA70EFBD[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Downloading transaction data is probably the #1 reason I use Money, so it had
better work. Up to and including bad data from a financial institution not
corrupting the money file.

"Dick Watson" wrote:
- quote -

M07 has been significantly more stable in my experience than M06/5--but
that's because of a feature that flushes out all the scheduled transaction
data including crap that has gotten in there through ways Money can't quite
solve on its own, even though it created the problem.

I have not had account corruption issues in many years and then only under
odd circumstances like opening the file over the WiFi when it was open on
the desktop machine. I don't download transaction data. I don't know if that
contributes to the integrity of the data but am convinced it contributes
greatly to the quality of the data.

"Steve" <Steve[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F595D657-94C0-4865-B76B-E498B036CA89[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Keeping the old file would let me keep that historical Net Worth Over Time
graph. Sure it would have a big flat section, but I do love watching that
line go up...

In microsoft.public.money, Steve wrote:

- quote -

I would back up to USB flash drives rather than floppies. They are
more reliable, and they hold more.

I would not Archive (as the term is used in Money). In Money,
Archive does things you may not expect. Instead I would back up.
That's almost surely what you meant.

If you have investment transactions (buys, sells, ReinvestDividend,
etc) I would strongly opt for the update and balancing. In fact, if
you intend to do direct transaction download from a version of Money
older than 2005, you probably could not do that with a new file.

You could start both ways, and see which seems to work better. You
can switch between most recently used files using the list at the
bottom of the File menu.

Is Money 2007 getting more stable regarding data? For instance, I recall
having at least 3 different accounts for my main checking account; n-1 times
the account became corrupted one way or another and I had to delete it to get
my net worth over time report to show up right.

"Dick Watson" wrote:

- quote -

I think you've outlined the choices pretty well.

There is no one right answer; but the one that is easiest, assuming you have
pretty much the same accounts now you had then, is your option to just enter
adjustment transactions to get back to new good balances.

"Steve" <Steve[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:08C6025E-A3EC-4966-B8EF-795803807393[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I haven't used Money since September 2005. One of my new years resolutions
for this quarter is to get back into it. I will probably do things to reduce
the time burden of doing so - for instance not keeping track of what I spend
cash on - if you have any suggestions along this line... but anyways. My
question is, with so much data missing and unavailable (many of my financial
institutions only keep the last 90 days' history downloadable), should I
bother keeping my old .mny file? Should I archive it and start a totally new
file going forward? Should I keep the file but close the accounts with huge
gaps and start fresh versions of those accounts? Or should I just upgrade,
enter a balancing transaction for the missing time period, and continue on? I
have about 6 years worth of data in the old file, so for instance it's too
big to archive on a single floppy disk. Any comments are welcome.