Help needed 'evolving' my monthly spreadsheet.

Alex92_2

Hi there,

For those of you that know me, you will know that im incredibly big on self improvement and always striving to reach my potential. Over the last few years, I have created from scratch and developed a monthly spreadsheet on excel with different tabs for every month of the year.

Within this spreadsheet, it allows me to clearly access the following information;

*Calender (all dates, showing weekends)
*Important Dates / Financial Dates in a separate tab to the side of that so I can track what im doing when.
*Income section within the calendar, so that I can write down what I get paid and when. This is then split up into My full time job / "Other" and Interest. Other consists of any money I make on top of my job that im not expecting.
*Outcome, this is then split up into about 6 different cateogories.
*At the bottom it is all added up to show the max outcome and income and adds up all my different cateogories for outcomes, such as petrol for the month, food etc. This allows me to see what im spending most on and what I can afford to cutback on.
*Profit, this is total income minus total outcome, it then has a percentage saved from salary next to it.

At the top I have finance targets for the year, my total amount saved up, my financial goal for the year (£20K saved) and shows the total profit for that month + previous savings - financial goal to show me how much left I have to save. I have then built in a formula which shows me according to statistics when I am liking to hit that goal.

I have another section full of all my banks (14 of them..) and the total amount for the start of that month in each of them. Total amount I have in cash and then misc section for amazon vouchers or something. I have the total added up under this too.

I have yearly/monthly interest table. This shows all my banks, the amount I have in there and what it gives me a year (including cashback into interest) and shows me the before and after tax percentage and the totals im expected to make.

I have a renewals table which is for anything that is up and coming that I will need to pay or move (bank offers being expired, Tax Discs, Insurance etc)

I have a total networth table which adds up 8 different cateogories and works out my percentage in each asset. It also tells me my total networth.

I have a table for Standing orders/direct debits, what is going where and when.

2013 - £500 challenge (for those of you that remember?) I take £500 at the start of the year and make as much money out of it by whatever means necessary until 1st Jan 2014.

Got a table for part-time work at my other job saying total hours, what shifts i worked, what times, what days, tips and total amount due.

AIMS for the month. This is the most important section to me. I put in 10 stupidly optimistic goals for the month and highlight them in red if they arent done and green if they are done. Above this I have a textbox that says "Summary of the month". I will write in here what I have learnt. If I havent reached my goals, why havent i? How could I prevent myself from failing them in the future and what have a learnt about setting next months goals.

I have an "OWED" table, this is a table for people that owe me money. It says the date I lent them the money/product and what they are expected to pay and by when. Useful for business.

And then i have a monthly financial quota of targets that i NEED to hit in order to meet all my financial goals that I set at the start of the month.

Here is where I need your help..

I havent evolved the spreadsheet for a while. I feel it needs spicing up and new bits added to it, but cant really think what needs adding.

What do you guys have on your monthly spreadsheets? i know a lot of you have them.

Xbigman

I started using spreadsheets years ago and was on the way to getting mine as complicated as yours sounds. I realised that a spreadsheet is a tool and not an end in itself. I've now evolved a simpler format that works well, although its still a level of planning way beyond what anyone else I know does.

I have one page (tab) per financial year. Its clear and easy to read. More importantly its easy to change around. I currently plan 2 complete years ahead. Its only really nescesary to plan one but I've a 0% card that I'm tracking the running total on.
I put everything through a credit card and pay it off each month, so I have separate pages for each credit card year linked to the main sheet.

Additionally I have pages that track my S&S ISA, mortgage, weight and utilities. I read the gas, water and electric meters on the 1st of each month and keep a record. And of course it works out the bills before I get them. On that sheet there's also a few things that are not financial. I change my (work) ear defenders on the 1st of each month, as well as changing my water filter every 3 months. A bit of organisation goes a long way.

I don't however use a spreadsheet as a diary. For that there's a cheap calender on the wall. Which I find a lot easier.




Darren

anoncol

Blimey you use your spreadsheet like a calendar. I use my phone for that. My wife and I access the same calendar on our phones.

Alex92_2

I use (and in love with) google mail/google calendar and all the other bits. I have the calendar linked up with my girlfriend and always had things up on that which is a big help.

The reason I use my spreadsheet as a calendar is because I can see what money I spent or earned on what days and if I spent a lot of money out and I cant remember where it goes, I cross check it.

So it may say June 16th, -£150, under "food/entertainment" cateogory and then see that I ate dinner out that day with so and so.

I guess because I dont have any bills yet (still living at home) its going to be a lot more empty than I could potentially make it!

JimmyTheWig

Alex92 wrote: »

I havent evolved the spreadsheet for a while. I feel it needs spicing up and new bits added to it, but cant really think what needs adding.

What do you guys have on your monthly spreadsheets? i know a lot of you have them.

The last big thing I did to mine, which has proved very useful, is added the ability to be able to update it at any point in the month. It checks todays date and based on that calculates how much spending money is needed for the rest of the month.

100saving

any chance you can post some screenshots please i am looking to improve mine.

you can post via http://imgur.com/ and copy the link to the insert image button.

Lungboy

Or could you upload the empty database to google docs? I'd love something like this but haven't a clue how to build my own.

100saving

Lungboy wrote: »

Or could you upload the empty database to google docs? I'd love something like this but haven't a clue how to build my own.

if this is possible it would be very good indeed!

mine looks like this at the moment. i took bits from other peoples in an other thread.

http://i.imgur.com/KPIw3MX.png