How to Make a Spread Sheet for Balancing My Bills
When the economy is down, it can often be quite difficult to make it to your next paycheck and still have any money left. And when the economy is good, it is hard to keep track of where all your money goes. With a personal computer and a spreadsheet program, you can quickly and easily make a document that will help you plan a budget and balance your bills. It won't make you any more money for paying your bills, but it can help you see where you should be cutting back.
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Instructions
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1
Track your spending. You will need at least three months of bills to find the average amount that you are spending. For three months, keep track of where you spend every dollar. Divide expenses up into categories, if possible, such as household, dining and entertainment.
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2
Start your spreadsheet program and open a new, blank worksheet.
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3
List the names of your bills, starting in cell B1. Type the name of each bill in column 1 and continue until you have all the categories listed. For example, in cell B1, you might have "mortgage"; in B2, "electricity"; in B3, "water"; and so on.
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4
List the average amount spent for each item in column 2, next to the item you listed. For example, if your mortgage is $1,000 a month, type "1000" in cell B2. Be sure to only type numbers and not the dollar sign or commas.
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5
Total your bills for the month. In the cell underneath all your dollar amounts, type =SUM(. After you open the parenthesis, select all the cells where you have dollar amounts. Then press enter. This will put a calculation in the cell that will sum all the cells above, even when you change the amounts.
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6
Type your monthly take-home income. Put this in the cell below the total cell you created in Step 5. Again, only type numbers, not commas or other characters.
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7
Type the formula for the end-of-month total in the next cell down. If Step 5 is in cell B15 and Step 6 is in cell B16, then the formula for this step and what you should type is =B16-B15.
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8
Make adjustments to your bills. If your total in Step 7 is a negative number, you are spending more than you earn. Adjust the amounts in the cells next to bill amounts (perhaps reduce the amount spent on entertainment or dining out) until the number at the bottom is zero, and your bills are balanced. If you cannot reduce any of the bill amounts, you will need to find a way to increase your income.
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