Fun with excel

BLT_2

I have been having fun with Excel this morning making a calculator to work out interest payments on credit cards (made the intereset rates up for practice) and extrapolate outstanding credit (although I have very few), hadn't realised how good it is to have it in front of you in a layout.

As a result of this work I actually managed to work out that after minimum debt repayments and with all bills paid including rent, child maintenance etc, I have available cash of circa 1100 pounds per month, which will go up with my pay rise in 3 months. Its not a lot to some people but it sounds quite comfortable to me.

I have decided to go on a saving spree, pay the minimum on my 0% credit card and live on beans on toast for the next 2 months so I can go on a nice holiday.

Nottoobadyet

Well done mate. I agree - once I had my own spreadsheets and budgets in front of me I realized I could be putting much more towards the debt - not as much as you but still much more than I thought I had.

Best of luck.

mazza25

I'm an excel geek (still in debt though lol) and I agree it's a really useful tool.

petebates26

Can anyone reccomend a decent budget planner spreadsheet - the only ones I've found online aren't very user friendly! I'm not bad in excel, but I'm no geek unfortunately!

BLT_2

petebates26 wrote: »

Can anyone reccomend a decent budget planner spreadsheet - the only ones I've found online aren't very user friendly! I'm not bad in excel, but I'm no geek unfortunately!

I made my own up just using basic formulae ie if you have an annual interest rate of 19% this works out at 1.58% - so you do the following

Cell

A1 Starting Balance
A2 Payment
A3 =SUM(A1-A2)
A4 =A3*1.58/100 (or you can put the 1.58 in another cell and use it as a constant
A5 =SUM(A3+A4)

Then I just repeat it across, it is very broad tool as credit cards are charged on a daily basis, but it works great if you want to work out how much of your loans is outstanding, and also what the penalty charge would be if you wanted to pay it off early.

No doubt there are Excel Geeks out there who could do it much easier:D, but we amateurs have our place in this world.

emd1987

Oh gosh I wish I could do this!