Debt Tracking/Repayment Spreadsheet - Any ideas

Rosey_Future

Hello,

As you may have seen from my previous posts, I am working hard on sorting out my debt problems. In short, I have a lot of creditors - payday loans, overdraft, friends etc. It took a while (and a lot of pain) to figure out who and how much I owed and I am now taking steps to pay them back.

In order to track my progress and keep on top of things, I am looking for some form of tracker (preferably in Excel) where I can track and monitor them. The type of information I would like to see are:-

• debt type and starting amount
• payments made (and somewhere I can input when i make payments)
• amount remaining
• charts (per creditor or overall debt)

For motivation it would be nice if there was some form of chart that showed my total debt balance on a monthly basis so i can monitor it going down.

Does anyone have anything like this that they could be prepared to share?

Thank you

AGirlWrites

Hi,

I think you may find this snowball link helpful. If you register first, you can save it and update when you make payments and it adjusts so you know how much is left to pay and how long it will take to pay everything off.

http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

Hope that helps a little, it did for me!

Rosey_Future

Thank you for this. Do u think this is good for personal payments (to friends) as well. I guess I just dont add an interest rate.

Busily working on updating it now

Sellurgranny

I found the snowball calculator a really helpful tool too. As for spreadsheets to record your debt progress, I ended up doing one myself but its more of an income/outgoing one where I've listed all my outgoings throughout the month, then colour coded them into weeks which then get transferred onto a separate page each week so I can see exactly what I need to pay each week. That way I never miss a payment that's due. Its probably not the most efficient way of doing things but it provides me with a snap shot of my accounts in an instant.

Good luck with your debtfree journey, it can be slow going once the initial buzz of excitement (if you can call it that) subsides then the monthly grind of chipping away sets in. The snowball caculator helps to remind you that you ARE getting somewhere with it all.

Rosey_Future

Thanks for this. I do have a spreadsheet that lists all the things i have to pay. But I think once i have done the snowball calculator, i will keep my spreadsheet for regular outgoings and then use the online one for debt progress. At the moment, everything is on the same sheet and its a bit overwhelming.

At least having the debts listed separately, things dont end up getting mixed up as I often paid out debts and then realised there wasnt enough for priority payments. So i guess the key is deal with the regular outgoings first, then allocate to debts after.

Thanks, this is helpful

AGirlWrites

Rosey_Future wrote: »

Thank you for this. Do u think this is good for personal payments (to friends) as well. I guess I just dont add an interest rate.

Busily working on updating it now

I don't see any problem why you couldn't put personal payments on there. If you put them at 0% it would allocate paying them last. If you want those to be paid 1st then allocate them the highest interest rate, if that makes sense.

Idiophreak

Rosey_Future wrote: »

Thanks for this. I do have a spreadsheet that lists all the things i have to pay. But I think once i have done the snowball calculator, i will keep my spreadsheet for regular outgoings and then use the online one for debt progress. At the moment, everything is on the same sheet and its a bit overwhelming.

Spending a couple of hours getting your spreadsheet working for you would be a great investment in time. Mine does a bunch of (simple) stuff, that makes life much easier:

1) Has a "template" tab, that includes all the things I pay out, get money in from each month. Each month, I copy this into:

2) A new tab for every month, listing what I'll pay out, what I'll get in and how much I'll have left to pay toward debts. It also includes realtime balances of each of my debts and calculates the minimum payments based on his.

3) I have a "future" tab, which has all the same in/out numbers, but with estimated values between now and the end of the year. It also has rows for each debt, so I can see them reducing.

3 was only added recently and it was a bit of work (as it lists everything I intend to spend at any point in the next 12 months), but it's by far the most useful thing as

a) it allows be to track annual payments, not just annual ones and ensure I'll have enough cash to cover them. Same for holidays etc.

b) I'm able to *accurately* estimate my debt free date, accounting for annual payments, birthdays and other one-offs.

c) I'm able to assess the impact of additional spending on my debt free date. eg "If I spend £100 on cake...how far will that push me back".

Once all the effort's put into the sheet, updating it each month only takes a couple of minutes...

Rosey_Future

AGirlWrites wrote: »

I don't see any problem why you couldn't put personal payments on there. If you put them at 0%

OMG, you are like mystic meg! I had entered all the figures but couldnt understand why it wouldnt calculate. It was because I hadnt put interest rates in. So I put the interest to all the friends at 0% and it worked perfectly.

I have regiestered with the site, so now everything is saved.

Its really encouraging to see an end date and to see how in two months i could have got rid of 3 debts, in six months another 2 etc... I can see this is good for motivation.

Rosey_Future

Idiophreak wrote: »

Spending a couple of hours getting your spreadsheet working for you would be a great investment in time. ...

Thank you for this. Now I have all my snowball calculations, I can add them to the monthly planner. So each month, alongside the normal bills and living expenses, I can add the snowball payment I need to make that month.

I love this site!

excited_to_be_free

Rosey_Future wrote: »

Thank you for this. Now I have all my snowball calculations, I can add them to the monthly planner. So each month, alongside the normal bills and living expenses, I can add the snowball payment I need to make that month.

I love this site!

You're like Mystic Meg too! I was going to ask the same question about a spreadsheet. I'll do it as soon as I get home. Well done you!!!