The key to your financial success might be right under your nose, but if you have never used your computer’s spreadsheet you might not know how powerful it can be.

I use a spreadsheet to balance my checkbook, write up my budgets, plan our spending, and even determine how to best pay off debt.  Because of the complexity of explaining this process in an article (as opposed to sitting next to you), I have chosen only to explain how to program a budget.  If you are interested in learning more about programming loans and doing up charts and so forth, I recommend taking a class or having someone who is familiar with the program sit down with you and teach you some cool tricks.

I use excel, so if you use an alternate spreadsheet program, you may have to modify these instructions slightly. If you want it to look prettier, you will have to learn how to do formatting, this is just to show you how to make your spreadsheet functional for you.

                        A                         B           C         D            E            F           G 

In A1 type Family Budget.  In A2, type the first paycheck info.  In C2, type the amount of the first paycheck. In A3, Type the amount of the first expense (make sure to put a minus sign in front of all expenses!!!).  In B3 type the description of the first expense.  In C3 enter: =C2+A3 which tells the computer to add the 1000 to the -100 (should equal 900).

Put your cursor over the right lower corner of C3 until it turns into a plus shape. Left Click.  Hold and pull down 7 or 8 rows.  This will copy your formula into the lower lines and adjust it so your new entries in the A column calculate automatically.

Now you are ready to enter in the rest of your expenses.  Notice that you can now easily change anything.  Say John starts getting $1,200 paychecks—just change the $1,000 to $1,200 and you know exactly how much you have left-over.  Or suppose you have to buy a new air conditioner and the payments are $110 due on the 20th.  Just add the expense in and the computer will re-calculate your entire budget for you.  You can use the exact same method to balance your checkbook or run financial “what ifs”.  Whatever you do, don’t type in the spaces that have the formulas in them! (In this case, column C, starting row 3).  I hope you have as much fun with this as I do!

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