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Manage Your Finances Using an Excel Workbook
Posted by Kyle Pott at 3:00 AM on December 9, 2007
Get your expenses in order before the holidays with free ebook Within Your Means: Financial Planning for Hidden Expenses. Writer Michael Ham rolled an ebook and an Excel workbook together into one hybrid financial management tool. In addition to learning about implicit and explicit costs, you interact directly with the workbook by entering your income, expenses, and goals. A series of interrelated Excel formulas slowly molds a snapshot of your current financial situation.
An Excel workbook to help you create a budget that recognises not only your explicit expenses (rent/mortgage, utilities, groceries, auto insurance and registration, and the like), but also implicit expenses: the money you implicitly spend by gradually wearing out things you must replace (car, tires, mattress, TV, furniture, and the like).I spent an hour going through the workbook earlier this week and was pleased at how well the workbook complemented traditional financial software like Quicken, Money, Wesabe, and Mint.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Leisureguy
Posted 2:14 PM 9/12/07
Someone posted on my blog that Mac Numbers can normally use an Excel spreadsheet. Within Your Means is in Excel 97, so normally an Excel-compatible program could use it. However, it's a multi-worksheet workbook, and the formulas on one worksheet often use data from another worksheet, so that may be what's causing the problem with the non-Excel programs.
Leisureguy
mordecai
Posted 11:00 PM 8/12/07
nice. for some reason, I feel like I'll actually use this.
mordecai
Cidinho
Posted 5:33 PM 8/12/07
@hipersons: Sorry, did you miss the word "Excel" in "Excell Workbook"?
Cidinho
tno
Posted 2:48 PM 8/12/07
Having spent a few weeks trying to put together a budget spreadsheet system that would work well for me and my wife it's at once disheartening and exhilarating to find a tool so capable. Now to mimic it in gDocs.
tno
hipersons
Posted 12:56 PM 8/12/07
its also not in a format that Mac Numbers can understnd.
hipersons
Leisureguy
Posted 12:51 PM 8/12/07
The storefront has links to three books that I wrote:
Guide to Gourmet Shaving
Within Your Means
Cooking Compendium
I think they're all quite useful, of course. :)
Leisureguy
jimforcy
Posted 12:50 PM 8/12/07
If only this was offered in Google Docs format. That would be quite handy.
jimforcy
Kyle Pott
Posted 12:02 PM 8/12/07
@all: Sorry about that. The link is repaired.
Kyle Pott
jadedscientist
Posted 11:32 AM 8/12/07
[www.lulu.com]
Download is on the same site; "Leisureguy" apparently has expertise in gourmet shaving, living within your means, and cooking.
jadedscientist
5h17h34d
Posted 11:25 AM 8/12/07
LOL
Nice link if you have razor rash!
5h17h34d
engstewart
Posted 11:16 AM 8/12/07
link broken- points to gourmet shaving?!?
engstewart
criticman
Posted 10:31 AM 11/12/07
Thanks, I will check this out. I already use MS Money '06 and I have built an Excel sheet for my own budgeting purposes, but it never hurts to see someone else's take one it!
criticman
sitkakids
Posted 1:14 PM 8/12/07
For those who need to edit any of the formatting on the Excel pages, the pages that are locked can be unlocked with "123". I needed to reformat some of the width's for larger numbers.
sitkakids
kbowen327
Posted 12:37 PM 8/12/07
The real power to using excel is that you can using cell references and change a interest rate or a payment amount and have every other cell update. Overall, a very powerful tool and a very good idea. Interestingly enough, this is exactly what big accounting firms use to crunch the numbers on huge audits.
kbowen327
sitkakids
Posted 12:10 PM 8/12/07
The link can be found here:
[www.lulu.com]
The Excel sheet looks great for those not using a software tracker.
sitkakids
jellopixy
Posted 11:15 AM 8/12/07
That link goes to "Leisureguy's Guide to Gourmet Shaving: Shaving Made Enjoyable".
Valid if it was about shaving your budget, but it's not.
jellopixy