You aren’t kidding? This isn’t a joke? Because QUICKEN | THE DAILY POST is not supposed to be an advertising ploy for some other company. I’m more than slightly perturbed by this. I hope this is a one-off, not something likely to continue because there are an awful lot of advertising links in this world.
This is so out-of-character, I’m at a loss to say how I feel about it.
Is it because we are nearing the time when we — as in regular citizens of the U.S. of A. — pay our taxes? Of course, I mean those of us who still actually pay taxes by which I do not mean our president who has spurned taxes in favor of government loopholes.
No, I mean the rest of us clowns, many of whom could really use a few of those loopholes.
Garry and I have always paid taxes and in giant lumps when we were both working. I sometimes got frustrated with it because I imagined how much we could have used that money for other things. Mostly, I got it. Taxes are the price you pay to live in a world that takes care of people who don’t have your job or money. I want to live in that world, be a part of it.
I used Quicken or a product like it during the years when I needed a way to make sure the numbers in my accounting was something like the numbers the bank had. Then I used it when I was in business for myself and I needed something to manage invoices … and again during the few remaining years when the bank didn’t have the same software.
Now, just about every bank from the most local to the biggest in the world has everything. I don’t need a separate application to prepare taxes. I’m not planning a retirement: I’m in it. It’s a bit late to decide what to do now.
QUICKEN? Yes! Look it up. Maybe those of us who use it will get a special discount?
I can’t help but wonder why WordPress would choose a this specific word which is connected with a particular application known for use with taxes.
It seems odd, maybe even fishy. Don’t you think? I mean, it’s not like “band-aid,” which is a product so ubiquitous it has become generic through use … or even Coke, which has done much the same thing. This is a unique product with special uses for this season, the season we Americans call “tax time.” I would not like to think this is … gasp … an advertisement!
As for me, nope. I don’t use it. Along with a few million other people. I’m pretty sure whatever else we do around the WordPress corral, advertisements are not it.
WONDERING ABOUT WORDPRESS 
SOME NOT-SO-BAD NEWS, THE LOCAL EDITION – Marilyn Armstrong 
WE ARE ARCHAIC – AND I’VE BEEN HACKED – Marilyn Armstrong 
BLOGGING DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE – Marilyn Armstrong 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Maybe it’s all the books I read in college not too long ago, but the tax program isn’t what I thought of when I read the word. I thought of the definition, “to make or become faster” as in “I felt my heartbeat quicken in my chest.” Could be because I’ve always used Turbo-tax for mine until I got married, and the hubs hires someone for his um… ours.
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I know. I think it’s all those years of using that product. All i could think of were applications, products, and loans. yeah, there’s quickening. And then, there’s turbo tax, quicken, and loans.
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I never gave much thought to the Quicken company until I went to Cleveland and noticed their loan division has the naming rights to the city’s basketball arena. It seems like Turbo Tax and the big tax prep companies have the market cornered on tax software now. I guess they could have used “Intuit”…. now that would have been a very suspicious choice for the word prompt..
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I think “Intuit” would be an AWESOME name for tax software. Stupid, but absolutely AWESOME. There’s absolutely nothing intuitive about taxes so what could make more sense than providing a tax product that assures you that what isn’t really IS? That’s what the world is all about.
Terrible name for a ball field, but in 20 years, who will remember what Quicken was anyhow?
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Intuit is the company that makes Turbo Tax. Obviously, they had to choose another name for the software itself….
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my husband used to do ours, but after mother died, and we had estate things to deal with, as well as his retirement stuff, it just was easier to go to the Tax Guy in town. We’ve never had a problem, and I like it that way.
When I lived at home, my dad did his taxes himself. Mother and I would go for long long walks on that day. lol sometimes many walks.
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I’m really bad at it and you don’t even want to THINK about Garry. And it isn’t all that easy. I mean, NOW it’s not a big deal, really, but it’s still a bigger deal than I can handle!
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We have thing called Turbo-Tax. You have to buy it to do your taxes (which I refuse to do). Any country that has tax system that is that complicated needs to change their tax system. So I stumble through line by line with my trusty calculate. There are a few expletive deleteds, but I get it done and I’m almost aways right to the last penny (which we don’t have anymore).
Leslie
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Turbo-Tax IS a version of Quicken specific to doing taxes. Quicken by itself keeps track of your checkbook, and if you actually have other stuff to track (other money-making stuff from the stock market or otherwise), it will keep track of that too and when tax comes around, it’ll print out nice neat pages with all your figures — OR it will take all your material and just dump it right into Turbo Tax.
I get my taxes done. I have NO head for taxes.
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I have no head for taxes either, but you have to know what that tax man is up too and I refuse to let them get the better of me. I get rather testy at tax time (as you can imagine).
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I tried doing them myself and I was hopeless. I got EVERYTHING wrong. Now, though i use the folks at the senior center in town. And thank god for them! I’d NEVER get it done any other way. We don’t have enough money to really hire anyone … and even when you DO hire someone, most of the time, they are awful anyhow.
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I used to do my father’s income taxes while he was alive. For a senior, they were so complicated that when I got to a certain point I wrote on the form “this is so confusing – YOU finish it “- and they did. My complaint is when the system is that complicated there is something very wrong with it. We shouldn’t have to hire someone else to do them and we shouldn’t have to buy a computer program to do them.
Leslie
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I didn’t take this at all for the tax software (which has been known as Turbo Tax for a few years now). I thought of it as speeding up the pace! But really good post on a really good point!
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This probably depends on whether or not you used Quicken. When I got serious about computing at home (as opposed to at work), it wasn’t easy to find tools that let you manage your checkbook and set up documents for tax time. There were just two: one was Microsoft’s Money; the other was Quicken. I started with “Money,” but they pretty much disappeared and I went to Quicken. That was before every bank in the world had the same basic software. AND i was in business for myself, so I needed something to help me write invoices and track them down. Over the years, the application got more and more expensive, complicated and eventually I gave up. What had been a $20 program had become $100 program (more, depending on what you wanted in it) … and it wasn’t BETTER than the original, just more expensive.
SO it was the first thing I thought of. Quicken as a word you use in a sentence? Well, yeah, but not really. The quickening of the young green leaves on the trees of spring? Uh, probably not. But Quicken as in “it’s TAX TIME people” … THAT rang a bell!
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My husband has used Quicken Books as well but is rewriting his own accounting program to be compatible with today’s OS’s. I am holding out for that. But Turbo Tax (Quicken Tax) is not my favourite thing this year either. They have gone “online” and I can’t auto load my info from last year any more. I don’t really want my taxes online – I have a programmer hubby who writes encryption software so we know how easy it is for others to break in if they want! 😉 But yes, I do understand where you are coming from.
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Just did a bit of a word hunt, and it turns out that some people have been using the word “quicken” to mean optimize or speed up the process of certain downloads. I find it offensive/annoying/irritating, and this is the first time I was aware of it being out there. I rate this right up there with “to office”.
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I knew that too, but somehow, to me, Quicken is an application for setting up your stuff for tax. When was the last time we used “quicken” in a sentence? It’s tax time.
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