The new year is coming up again and what plans have you made for your budget next year? Maybe you’ve decided to find out where all that vanishing money is going. Maybe you have chosen to spend your money on pet insurance, too many shopping trips, or just realized that food and gas prices have gone up. Most businesses use digital spreadsheets to track their budgets — and you can too.
Once you open a spreadsheet, you’ll see a large page divided into cells. The first cell up in the left corner is box ‘A1,’ because it’s in column A and is on row 1. Don’t be intimidated; using a spreadsheet is easy. It is a great tool to plan out all of your necessary spending like health insurance, food, pet insurance, gas for you car, even space to save for retirement.
In cell B2, type ‘Income.’ Push tab to go to C2 (the cell to the right of B2) and type in your monthly income after taxes.
Now for your bills. Click B4 and type in ‘Bills.’ Push tab again and type your first bill in C4, like pet insurance or utilities. Don’t worry about adding the amount of each one yet; that’s in the next step. Push enter and add the next bill. Keep going down the column until you’ve added all your monthly bills.
Click in the cell to the right of each bill and begin to enter the amount of each one. The name and the amount have to be in separate boxes. For example, the box for ‘Rent’ should have it’s amount in the box to the right.
Once you have all your amounts entered, go to the end of the amounts column and click in the box below the last one. Here comes the tricky part. Type ‘=SUM(C4:C10)’ and push enter. If you have a lengthy number of bills, replace C10 with the last amount box. This little code will add all of your bills.
Lastly, in the box right below ‘Income,’ type in ‘Dis. Income.’ Push tab, type in ‘=C2-C11′ and push enter. Replace C11 with the total bill amount from the last step and you’re done. This is your disposable income.