Spending diary - can anyone advise

alwayspuzzled

Hi all, I've been using this site for a month or so and have found it really helpful, having had sucess with a PPI claim and by using a business debt template.

We have unsecured debt of £57,000 some of which was renorvation costs on the new house which is now finished and after 2 1/2 yrs and a still poor market we now have achieved an equity of £115,000. So its on the market and I've identified a couple of homes suitable for our next project. This will (hopefully) leave us debt free apart from a similar sized mortgage, and give us a £10K spend for a start doing up the next wreck.

However reading this site has made me realize that I need to reduce our outgoings so that next time we don't end up with so much debt! I have identified that I don't really know how much we spend overall on groceries, personal spend etc and I want to start a spending diary but I am useless with spreadsheets etc. When I had my 1st home and times were tight I used Quicken but as we became more solvent this habit died by the wayside. I've done some research and see that Quicken no longer offer a UK package. Can anyone recommend a cheap (or free!) alternative? I'm thinking maybe I should get an old quicken 2004 copy from ebay? What I really liked about using quicken was the predictive function with dd's so's etc as well as the reports, charts etc. I see there are a few web based sites but am very reluctant to upload personal finances.

Sorry this got so long.

ch8797

Hiya, try google docs. Go to google and register or sign in if you have a hotmail, yahoo or windows live email address.

This allows you to save spreadsheets, Word docs, power point presentations and edit them whenever you need them. You can also download them into a microsoft document if required. I use it all the time with my open university course.

Good luck!

C

ch8797

PS its also FREE! The link for google docs is on the homepage google.co.uk along the top of the screen

MyLastFiver

Just use Excel, or OpenOffice (free spreadsheet which is very similar)

A column for income (call it "A"), a column for outgoings (B), a column for balance (C). Entries go down the page, each on a separate row (1,2,3,4,5 etc)

Enter you current balance at the top of the income column, let's say it's row 1.

Formula for first row in "balance" column is "=A1-B1". That is, balance equals income minus outgoings.

The formula for the next cell down in the balance column is "=(C1+A2)-B2" That is, the balance from the last row, plus income in the current row, minus outgoings in the current row. Copy and paste this formula right the way down your C column.

Do some totals at the bottom if you like: Total income: "=sum(A1: Ax)" Total outgoings: "=sum(B1:Bx)" where x = the last row of your column.

MyLastFiver

Oh yes - Google docs is good too, as long as you have a reliable connection as the docs are kept online.

WASHER

Thank you mylastfiver, I've got a excel spreadsheet but I couldn't for the life of me get the formulas to work, I will now with your explanation.

MyLastFiver

Let me know if you get stuck again Washer - I'll knock one up for you - just tell me what you want it to do.

alwayspuzzled

Thanks just had a quick look but as I'm talking about my whole personal finances I'd prefer to keep them on my computer in my house rather that floating round a server no matter how secure. Internet banking is supposedly secure but Lloyds TSB could offer me no explaination as to how someone managed to do a online transaction for £2000 out of my account - apparently because they spotted the irregularity and put it on hold until they had spoken to me means it didn't matter how it had been done and therefore needed no investigation.

MyLastFiver

alwayspuzzled - let me know if you want me to knock up a spending diary template for you on Excel (which will be compatible with OpenOffice)

alwayspuzzled

MyLastFiver wrote: »

Just use Excel, or OpenOffice (free spreadsheet which is very similar)

A column for income (call it "A"), a column for outgoings (B), a column for balance (C). Entries go down the page, each on a separate row (1,2,3,4,5 etc)

Enter you current balance at the top of the income column, let's say it's row 1.

Formula for first row in "balance" column is "=A1-B1". That is, balance equals income minus outgoings.

The formula for the next cell down in the balance column is "=(C1+A2)-B2" That is, the balance from the last row, plus income in the current row, minus outgoings in the current row. Copy and paste this formula right the way down your C column.

Do some totals at the bottom if you like: Total income: "=sum(A1: A x)" Total outgoings: "=sum(B1:Bx)" where x = the last row of your column.

Thanks, I am looking more for something I can put spends and regular transactions into and then ask it to feed it back to me in itemized reports with sub totals for sub catergries like groceries, entertainment, petrol, for anytime period I want. I know I do have a calculator but lazyness is whats got me in a mess, I can organize regular time for the 10 mins or so a day nessicary for a log but any more and it just won't happen. Am researching this now as I'm currently without a job. Normally I work full time, have 3 kids under 10 and a house to run/fix up.

MyLastFiver

Right. I know what you mean and there are a few ways of achieving it, the easiest one to set up being different columns for different spending categories, the neatest one for the user being assigning category codes to entries. Generating daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual reports is easy - that's what spreadsheets are really designed to do.