Want a budgeting tool that also helps you plan your tax and retirement strategy? The Ultimate Budget tool estimates your federal and state taxes based not only on income and filing status but also on 401(k) contributions, Roth conversions, and other deductions and credits. It sums your mortgage interest, state taxes, and charitable contributions to help you decide whether itemizing is better than taking the standard deduction. It's a budgeting tool that also helps you optimize your savings and minimize your taxes.

With the Ultimate Budget, you can easily create a custom month-by-month annual budget. Income and expense entries can be entered quickly at a specified frequency (monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, etc.), or you can use the month plan feature to specify when they start and stop and set individual monthly amounts. Include mortgage and home equity loans, car loans, and travel planning. The result is a 1-page budget view, federal and state tax estimates, and an annual summary with graphs that show you where you stand at any time. You can even import from the Checkbook spreadsheet to track actuals. The Ultimate Budget tool can be used by singles or couples.

Requires the Excel, LibreOffice, or OpenOffice application. The spreadsheet-formatted files are provided at the download link emailed after checkout.