One of the things that I’ve often been asked to add to Budget Advisor was an option to password protect the budget. As of version 3.0 you can now do this.

To password protect your budget just select “Options -> Password protect budget” from the menu.

Be warned though, it’s very important that you remember your password! If you forget it then you’re not going to be able to access your budget at all.

You may want to make your budget confidential, but don’t keep your financial goals a secret. Studies have shown that just by telling other people your goals, you increase your changes of achieving them.

It’s already February but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to setting some goals, if you haven’t already. It might be paying off your debt or saving for that holiday you’ve always wanted. Whatever it is why not set yourself a target date, and then start telling people about it.

I’ve recently added an option in Budget Advisor to backup your budget.  This will also backup all settings from the program settings screen.

You can also use this to transfer your budget to a new computer. Just create a backup from your old PC, and then restore that backup on your new PC.

If you’d like to upgrade to the latest version, or if you’re new here and would like to try our home budget software, it can be downloaded here.

What about all of the other data your PC though. If you don’t have a backup plan in place then one day you’re going to regret it. Losing your budget might not be too bad, but imagine losing some irreplacable like all of your photos.

I’ve recently started using Dropbox for online backups and so far I’m very impressed. After you install the Dropbox software on your computer you will see a “Dropbox” folder in your My Documents. Anything you copy to this folder will automatically be saved online as well. If you install Dropbox on another PC you will have access to all of your saved files. The best thing is that Dropbox is free, as long as you only need to store up to 2Gb of data. They also have paid plans if you need to store more. Check it out at www.dropbox.com. By the way, I’m not an affiliate, just a happy customer.

I released version 3 of Budget Advisor near the end of last year. Here’s some of the new features:

• Import your bank and credit card statements
• Highlight overbudget items in colour
• A fresh new look
• Password protect your budget
• New item tags let you categorized your budget items in different ways and let you create powerful reports

So far feedback has been good and I think I can confidently say this is the best version yet. I have been using it for my own budget and I definitely wouldn’t want to go back to version 2.

You can find out more about Budget Advisor here or download a 30 day trial version here.

I already have a list of new features that I plan on adding. However if you have any ideas please let me know. I’m always eager to hear what features people would like to see added.

On this blog I will write about new features, tips and tricks when using Budget Advisor as well as general budgeting tips and anything else I think might be interesting.

Just for fun I tried running version 1 of Budget Advisor on Windows 7. It ran fine but I think you’ll agree that it looks a little dated

Budget Adviosr 1 - A trip down memory lane