'How many spreadsheets and graphs do you have?' blog discussion.

callum9999

For all the people with spreadsheets tracking spending etc., Microsoft Money is a lot easier in my opinion (although now you've already set yours up it probably won't make much difference).

It's completely free (somewhere on their downloads section) and is basically like a spreadsheet keeping track of various accounts and categorising different payments so you get pie charts showing what your spending is where. I believe there is also a budgeting tool on it but I don't use that.

The biggest time saver for me is that you don't need to type much in. Some of my banks provide files from the internet banking that you can just import into MS Money and it fills out all the details for you. Though for the ones that don't, you need to convert it in excel which may be a bit fiddly for some beginners (plus I've lost the program that actually makes the conversion anyway!).

Percy1983

callum9999 wrote: »

For all the people with spreadsheets tracking spending etc., Microsoft Money is a lot easier in my opinion (although now you've already set yours up it probably won't make much difference).

It's completely free (somewhere on their downloads section) and is basically like a spreadsheet keeping track of various accounts and categorising different payments so you get pie charts showing what your spending is where. I believe there is also a budgeting tool on it but I don't use that.

The biggest time saver for me is that you don't need to type much in. Some of my banks provide files from the internet banking that you can just import into MS Money and it fills out all the details for you. Though for the ones that don't, you need to convert it in excel which may be a bit fiddly for some beginners (plus I've lost the program that actually makes the conversion anyway!).

This is very true actually, it is a good program, personally I like the freedom of doing what the hell I like in excel, but as mentioned MS money is great and simple to use.

belle_de_jour

So, just out of curiosity, I checked how many live spreadsheets I have at the moment. Is 88 a lot?

What about the other 339 Excel files and 293 Lotus 123 files going back from 2010 to 1997? :eek: Should I be embarrassed? :rotfl:

But no graphs . . .

Percy1983

Is that due to organising it differently, eg, one sheet per month or such like.

I have less spreadsheets but many sheets within them.

SusanC_2

belle_de_jour wrote: »

So, just out of curiosity, I checked how many live spreadsheets I have at the moment. Is 88 a lot?

What about the other 339 Excel files and 293 Lotus 123 files going back from 2010 to 1997? :eek: Should I be embarrassed? :rotfl:

But no graphs . . .

Going back 5 1/2 years I have 216 excel files 44 of which have been modified in the last year. Some of those are merely functioning as pro formas (e.g. blank menu plans) or other printable items (e.g. labels) rather than for calculation.

curlygirl1971

iansoady wrote: »

Spreadsheets? pah.

The only tool for really being able to analyse and dissect what's going on is a relational database.

callum9999 wrote: »

For all the people with spreadsheets tracking spending etc., Microsoft Money is a lot easier in my opinion (although now you've already set yours up it probably won't make much difference).

I've already set up my spreadsheet and I 'enjoy' messing around with it :rotfl:. Although it takes time one of the things I like about it is that I'm able to forecast where I will be in months, years time. Is this something you can do in MS Money? How would this work with a Database?

GlasWolf

Probably the most complex personal spreadsheet I've ever created was for a house move budget when I went back into full-time education. I wanted to see the comparison of offsetting vs. savings vs. larger deposit and so on, so I put all of my projected earnings, interest, outgoings, various savings account balances, the whole lot into it. From that I created graphs showing total mortgage interest paid, savings interest earned, mortgage repayment time, total savings and so on, projected for 25+ years. Finally, I phoned the Woolwich and asked if they'd give me a mortgage. They said no.

The spreadsheet was really good though.

Elsewhere I have a football scores spreadsheet going back to 1998, one containing my plethora of bank accounts (most of them containing £1), their interest rates, projected interest and total equivalent interest, and one with all my credit card spending. The CC one has several graphs, which I believe officially qualifies me a level 4 nerd (although I haven't graphed that yet).

laurel7172

I'm...ummm..considering a spreadsheet.

I have an app on my phone to keep track of my bank accounts, but there's no facility to analyse or sort data, and it takes forever to reconcile (part of that is self-inflicted, because on my phone balance I put all the regular payments through on the first of the month, regardless of when they actually come out, so I know how much money I *really* have.) A spreadsheet would be so much better...

iansoady

Just to show what I mean by the database, here is an image of the basic item entry form:



Date defaults to today (button next to it subtracts 1 day at a time to make it easy to enter yesterday's stuff); item is a brief description of what it is (eg "lunch"), category and context are both drop-down menus.

Note that you can set up as many currencies as you want, each with a conversion rate which again you can change as that changes.

If I were to change anything in the database it would be to add two fields in the underlying table: currency actually used and actual amount in that currency, as the system currently does the conversion on the fly so I don't have historical records of what rate was at the time of the cost.

Incidentally there are just over 7,000 records for nearly 6 years of use.

If anyone's interested I could give them an "empty" version of the DB but there will be NO support available!

curlygirl1971

Thanks iansoady

I know what you mean about things you'd change - my spreadsheet system has grown and changed. It started off very simple and then as my finances grew more complicated, I got frustrated because it couldn't do certain things I wanted it to so I had to try and tweak it without needing to start all over again. It's not too bad but I think I'm hampered by my lack of more advanced excel knowledge. If I was doing it again now from fresh it would probaby look very different...........but I just don't have the stamina to start again!



Incidently there was a question earlier in this thread about totals at the bottom of a sheet and viewing them easily without scrolling down. Freeze panes and putting the totals at the top or on a different sheet were suggestions.

After I bit of fiddling around (and looking at the help function) I've done the following:-

1) Created a dummy copy of my spreadsheet
2) Created a named Data Range (for the cells in which the summary information is located)
3) Recorded a macro that used the 'Go-to' function. The Go-to was to the Data Range
4) Created a Button and assigned the Macro to it
5) Tested it and once I was happy repeated the actions in my real spreadsheet

Other than a few simple forumlas I'm not that brilliant with Excel however after looking up these things in 'Help' It took me 15 mins to do the above and I found it fairly easy. I now have a Button at the top of my huge spreadsheet that when pressed takes me straight down to the totals and analysis