Project - Monthly Budget

This is it. The most fundamental family spreadsheet activity. Building a budget. This is the single most useful tool that a personal user of a spreadsheet app will find. It requires dedication and planning, but once the spreadsheet is set up, the whole process is, more or less, automated, requiring only that a person/family track their spending and transactions and make sure to enter them into the spreadsheet regularly.

Tools

Data Validation

To ensure that only certain input can be in a certain cell and create nifty drop-down menus in our cells.

SUMIF()

Using the SUMIF() function again to add only specific numbers to get breakdowns of expenses by category.

SPARKLINES()

We’re going to build a couple of different sparklines to enhance the look of the spreadsheet and give a visual indicator of our data for a more intuitive understanding of it.

Fill Handle

It’s important to remember how absolutely essential this tool is, so we’re going to use it to make our work a little less annoying.

Functions and formulas

We’re going to take a look back at making sure we’re building an understanding of what functions and formulas are appropriate and where. And how to recognize some bugs.

PROJECT

Copy the start file to your machine, open it in Excel, and follow along in the video above.

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