I believe in frugal living and paying yourself first. One of the simple ways to achieve this is by using a budget. You know how much money you get. Once you can track (or estimate) how much you are spending, it is easy to see how much you are paying your future self and what wiggle room you have. So in the spirit of making you awesome in life, not just Excel, let me share a simple but elegant household budget spreadsheet. Click here to download free budget template.
Here is a screenshot of the budget.
How does it work?
Simple really.
- Start by entering your income and itemized spending. You can select various frequencies (for example public transport – $16 per week, dining out $70 per month etc.)
- As you type data, category level summaries are shown on top along with a data bar to show relative expenditure of each category.
- The BALANCE row on the left turns RED if you spend more than you make.
- The graph on left helps you see the big picture and optimize your spending / savings.
How is it built?
There are three components in the budget spreadsheet:
1. Calculation of monthly totals by category:
- There is a frequency mapping table in the “Settings” tab to help calculate monthly totals from various amounts at different frequencies.
- Using SUMPRODUCT and SUMIFS, we can calculate total amount per category by month, like below.
Say you have amounts in G7:G26 and frequencies in H7:H26. To calculate total amount by month,
=IFERROR(SUMPRODUCT(G7:G26, SUMIFS(freqs[Multiplication factor],freqs[Frequency],H7:H26))/12,0)
We are fetching an array of multiplication factors from freqs table (shown aside) using SUMIFS. We then multiply that with amounts in G7:G26 thru SUMPRODUCT and finally divide this with 12 to get monthly value. If there is an error (typos / no data etc.) we show 0.
Read up more about SUMIFS and SUMPRODUCT formulas.
2. Quick visualization of category level spending
As you enter values, you can see a quick total (arrived thru the formulas explained above) and a data bar. This data bar is made with Conditional Formatting. The databar cells have a reference to totals calculated in cells above. We just set up databar on all cells in one go (so Excel can relatively size them based on values). Use CTRL+Click to multi-select the cells.
3. Spending by category graph – Treemap (Excel 2016)
In the settings page, we can harvest all category level spending in one column and then feed that to any chart in Excel. I have used Treemaps because they work well with data like this. But if you want, you can use column / bar / donut / pie charts too. In fact, I have created another version of the spreadsheet with column charts so that you can use it in earlier versions of Excel.
Read more about Excel treemaps and sunburst charts | Another example of treemap – customer service dashboard
Do you use Excel to track and manage money?
I do. I have used spreadsheets to track money soon after I started my first job 15 years ago. I have built several workbooks to track budgets, vacation plans, retirement scenarios, self-employment cash flows and house purchases. From time to time I have shared those techniques here on Chandoo.org too. Check out below templates and tutorials.
- Grow your money mustache using Excel
- 7 more expense trackers for you
- Sharing trip expenses using Excel
- Retirement calculator using Excel
What about you? Do you use spreadsheets to track and manage your finances? Please share your thoughts and examples in the comments section.
22 Responses to “Master Excel 2007 Ribbon with this Free Learning Guide”
Thank you, kind sir. Well done with the baby making.
I cannot get signed up for your newsletter. I tied both this email address and churchill2001@hotmail.com. never a response.
I cannot get signed up for your newsletter. I tied both this email address and churchill2001_at_hotmail_dot_com. never a response for either attempt.
@Doug, it shows that your email address is pending verification. Can you check your inbox (and may be spam folder too) for an email from me? The subject will be "Activate Subscription to Get your Free Excel Tips E-book"
[...] PPS: If you are struggling with ribbon, you should check out ribbon learning guide. [...]
Very Useful Info..Keep it up..
@Ajay.. you are welcome 🙂
how do u download microsoft excel for free?
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
Select Office
Free Trial
[...] Excel 2010 UI looks considerably better and less stressful than 2007. The colors are dull and subtle. The icons don’t call for attention unless you want to do something. The menus / ribbons feel smoother and slicker. [Learn to use Excel Ribbon with this Free e-Book] [...]
I can't open this pdf. I get the error message:
You do not have the required license to open this file.
Please request a license from the creator of the file, and add it using the license manager and they try opening it again.
What gives??
I downloaded the file again and it worked this time. Strange. (First file was 116 KB, second was 1644 KB... ???)
[...] More ribbon goodness | Free e-book to learn Excel Ribbon [...]
Hi Chandoo,
thanks for sharing your Excel 2007 learning experience with us; unfortunately the link to the pdf of the free Excel 2007 learning guide seems broken: my Acrobate Readers flags: "Unkown file type or corrupte data".
Have a nice day
Michael
well done this is great
Can somebody just provide a link the classic TAB exportedUI files for MS Office 2003 for us to use in office 2007/2010?. searching online, everybody just wnats to make a buck online with silly Classic Tab installers which do nothing more than inport exportedUI files for you.
Don't give me a ribbon how to guide, just give me free exportedUI files. I should not have to pay anyone for this, it is free XML, MS should have included this to begin with.
thanks
Dear.
There are a set of debit values and a set ot credit values in a column. I want a vba code by whcich the debit value plus a single / multiple credit value is zero that needs to be marked .
finally i will come to know out of the avaibale debits which cannot be used the with avilable credits either single or multiple values.
If multiple matching sets are available let it take the 1st or the 2nd one its not an issue.
Column A Ref
-1000 A
-5000 B
-8000 C
800 A
100 A
100 A
2000 B
3000 B
13000
15000
hi...
how to make this add-ins and display in ribbon... check this sample : http://www.cprsoft.com/GCDemo01.htm
thank you sir...
Please tell me format painter short cut key In excel ?
Thanks In Advance
thankfully.likeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
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I appreciate this, because I didn't do much works in my project management studies using gantt chart. As of now are have now learned some advancement.