Adopting Microsoft Excel for home budgeting

**dcompton** · 01-13-2011, 02:04 AM

The best thing about Excel is that it is really, really good at math! I'm in favor of anything that means I don't have to add up long columns of figures or even, God forbid, calculate percentages!

I don't do a categorized budget now, but when I did, I used Excel. Now I only keep a workbook with pages for a monthly balance sheet, a page to monitor retirement investments and other savings, and a page to keep a running tallly on state sales tax I owe for online purchases. (Yes, I'm one of the scrupulous people who actually pay it, on the grounds that one of the worst, horrible things that can happen is to fall a-foul of the IRS or any other tax office.)

**renmerc446** · 01-13-2011, 08:52 AM

I use Excel for my library catalog and the local rainfall amounts (my personal bit of fun). Haven't thought about using it for budgeting purposes. I know there's a lot more I can use it for but even after all this time, I still haven't learned some of the more advanced options to it.

**Greebo** · 01-13-2011, 08:55 AM

I use excel but I don't use any of their budgeting templates. I just built my own.

Still - templates are a great way to start - and as you learn how the program works you can tweak it. If you have questions, just ask.

**Tess B** · 01-19-2011, 12:22 PM

I use Excel for tons of stuff, both in my work life (i'm in finance/grants) and my "other" life. makes budgeting a breeze...i have a pretty basic monthly template set up and then simply make a copy and rename for the ensuing month. i also have a spreadsheet set up in the same workbook for my credit card debt reduction plan - down at the bottom i carry forward what the starting balance was back in '07 when i first started getting serious about paying down debt. and i have a little running calculation on the current balance and what the overall percentage reduction is.

and cuz i'm goofy that way, i even have a spreadsheet that tracks the #of days/years since the day the other half and i met and certain milestones along the way. we just passed the 3,000 day mark! LOL and we've owned our home 1,155 days. pretty much anything in my life starts with a spreadsheet.......