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Figuring Finances with OpenOffice Calc
Thursday night I did my balanced my finance with OpenOffice.org Calc and created a spending budget for the next two weeks. It was pretty slick and I have pretty simple finances so I don't need to buy a dedicated program like Quicken.
Here is what you can do.
Just find the total of needs with
=SUM(B2;B3;B4;B5;B6;B7;B8;B9;B10;B11;B12)
Then find the total of wants with
=SUM(B17;B18;B19;B20)
Then find money until next paycheck within
=SUM(B23;-B25;-B26)
Then combine your costs within
=SUM(B13;B21)
Then find out what you have left over with
=SUM(B28;-B29)
The cool thing is that once you set up the functions you can tweak your spending amounts to match your needs and it will run the numbers automatically. I am going to be doing a new spending budget every two weeks on my payday.
I know this is super old hat to anyone who knows how to use a spread sheet but I never really used a spreadsheet because I have not had reason too. I just did my finances manually with online banking and OpenOffice.org Writer.
I tell you open source software like Mozilla Calender and OpenOffice.org rules. I don't know what I would do without them. I made this graphic in Gimp2. I mean that is pretty nice on the pocket book. No irony intended. In this election season I believe in a balanced budget and fiscal responsibility. Ha!
Update: Here is my template in OpenOffice.org Calc and a M$ .xls Download zipped templates
Jake at May 14, 2004 
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Comments
Positive: Wanting the Bubba Hotep DVD.
Negative: Misspelling Kymberly's name on line 4.
And did you account for the higher gas prices in line 17?
Posted by: Eric at May 14, 2004 4:36 PM
Yeah I drive a Neon. It is a gas miser
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at May 14, 2004 4:57 PM
In my recent class, Problem Solving with Computers, we've been working with spreadsheets all week, and just had a quiz on them yesterday. When I awoke this morning to see this post, I had to make sure I wasn't trapped in some bizzare nightmare of cells and absolute references.
Posted by: Bryan of Stillnotcool.com at May 15, 2004 7:13 AM
Go play some Tetris before bed. You will dream of russians dropping bricks.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at May 15, 2004 8:43 AM
Budgets rule, they make money management that much easier.
I thought it was funny that you put the weblogger meetup in under needs.
Posted by: Kevin at May 15, 2004 10:00 AM
Well I do need to go.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at May 15, 2004 11:29 AM
wouldn't
=SUM(B2;B3;B4;B5;B6;B7;B8;B9;B10;B11;B12)
be better replaced with
=SUM(B2:B12)
Posted by: PhilH at May 18, 2004 6:02 AM
Ah yeah that would work much better.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at May 18, 2004 12:16 PM
