Can i use microsoft excel to manage my household bills?

I want to start using microsoft excel to manage my household bills. I intend to do this by setting up spreadsheets, which should automatically do the required calculations for deductions and additions etc. However, I am not skilled in using excel and wonder if anyone would be kind enough to enlighten me on the EASIEST way to go about it. Many thanks.

Your best plan would be to start with a ready made template such as this: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/...

There are many others, though, and you might find a more suitable one by Googling 'budget excel template' (for example).

Martin Lewis' site http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking... has some very good advice and tips for budget planning and includes an excellent (free) template to use with Excel. Download it and COPY it to make your own working sheet. Note that it is fairly sophisticated and contains macros, which Excel may warn you about opening. They are quite safe, however and should be enabled. The only rather annoying thing about it is that it modifies the toolbars. You can return to your original settings, however, by enabling the Standard and Formatting toolbars again from the View menu.

The site has many other sections on saving money generally, including comparisons between credit cards, utilities and many other things. Martin Lewis provides most (if not all) of this information free. He appears quite often in money programs on radio and TV.

What you describe, however, sounds a little different from a 'household budget' (managing household bills is, of course, part of a budget). Excel is not difficult to learn for this purpose. You will need to understand the basic concepts of a spreadsheet and how to use simple formulae. Without doubt, the EASIEST way of going about it would be to invest in an evening course at your local Further Education Centre which, in 6 weeks or less, would give you the grounding you need (as well as a tutor to help with specific problems). This is far easier than buying a book or using an online course, though they will both teach you what you need to know, of course. Learning with a tutor at set times is marvellously motivating and you can, of course, practice at home and apply your knowledge as you go.

1) I trust that you found it actually useful and that you will quickly learn to love Excel!

2) Do go for the evening classes! ECDL is a very good qualification to have under your belt (ask your employer).

3) I'm happy to answer any queries on Excel that you may have. I was an ECDL trainer. Report It

Yes Sir it actually the easiest way because you can add everything you owe each month and the dates things are due i use it and believe me to really good to have

Yes, I already do. But the easiest way is by leaning the program and using the help in the program.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templa...

its a personal budget template for excel

Yes you can and I am sure you can find templates on the Microsoft web site.

However I would recommend MS Money 200?. I have used this for years. Once set up it will track everything for you. Also at this time of year if you buy TaxCut, Money is free (is anything really free??)

First click a box (cell) you want to put your number in and just type the number in and press enter.

To apply a formula to that number just click another cell (a cell that is not the number you typed in) and type in the your formula.

To type in a formula you must click the cell and put the "equal" sign in front.

example: = A1 + 5
example: = A1*5
example: = A1/5

A1 is the name of the cell you are adding the 5 to. The asterisk is the times symbol in excel. The slash is the symbol for divide in excel.

A is the Column number and 1 is the row number of the cell.

After you enter in you formula just hit the return key.

To add up stuff, type in the numbers you want crunched in a single column.

In the cell below your numbers (or whatever cell you want your total to be in) type:

= Sum(A1:A5)

A1 is the row and column for the first number in the column.
A5 is the row and column for the last number in your column.

For example if the last number in your column is in cell A7 then it would look like this:

= Sum(A1:A7)

or if the first number in your column was in cell B5 and the last number was in cell B9 then the sum formula would look like this:

= Sum(B5:B9)

To get an average of your numbers type this:

= Average(A1:A5)

A1 is the cell that has your first number in your column.
A5 is the cell that has your last number in your column.

You can copy and past your formulas but just make sure that the cell names are correct once you past them down. To see the formula just click the cell with the formula in it.

Hopefully that helped and wasn't too complicated or confusing.