Monthly Budgeting in Excel

Many college students have little or no experience in handling money. Students should write down the monthly cost of tuition and fees, books, room and board, utilities, food, public transportation, personal car, entertainment and extra-curricular activities. In order to keep a smart budget, learning the difference between needs and wants is a major factor. The student who understands the difference is on the right path for keeping up with their budget.

Step 1: Using Excel

Making a budget can help you keep track of where you money goes, and help you set goals to get more out of your money. Excel is a great way to do this.

We'll be using Excel 2010 for this tutorial.

Excel is based on “cells,” boxes that can contain numbers or the results of mathematical formulas. These are the parts of Excel you will need to know for this tutorial.

Name Box: This is the name of the active cell. In this case, the cell being edited is A1.

Formula Bar: Rather than type in the cells, cells are edited in the formula bar.

Active Cell: The cell being edited at the moment is called the active cell, and is highlighted with a thicker black outline.

Column Letters: Cells are given a letter depending on which column they're in. The active cell is in row “A.”

Row Numbers: Cells are given a number for they're column. The active cell is in row “1.”

Comments

[Tampa Bay]

When defining terms in the beginning of the instructions there should have been photos to help show where these cells and things were located. These instructions were wordy, but they appealed to the reader by making it personable. More photos whould have been helpful. When discribing how to enter in the date, you stated that we had already done this. You should have told us to do it like we did when we sent the currency. The last step says that you "copy" in the final D cells, when you ment to say "Paste".

[moroccan12]

The use of visuals to help the audience understand each step was well done, I understood perfectly what what going on and what I was supposed to do in each part. I like that in step 1 you defined a dew key terms that are important to the use of the excel program. However, there were some grammatical errors: step 1 the identification of rows and columns are backwards in the visual (rows are numbered and columns are lettered) and in the last sentence the wrong they're is used; step 3 the last sentence in missing a word or two making it confusing; step 7 has a minor ambiguity in the explanation of the formula (why is the 1 included?); and step 9 you say to add column B and column C values when trying to get the difference.

[writer281]

The instruction set looked intimidating with all of the wordy sentences. I think bold headings and bulleted lists for each heading would be less intimidating and make for easier navigation. There was a grammatical mistake where you were explaining how to format cells B, C, and D to give totals., where the sentence sounded like it was missing a few words. Aside from this, it was very detailed and thorough, just be careful with the lengthy and wordy sentences. It can get very confusing.

[ccafox]

The intro caught my attention because I am a college student but I believe you address it to the general public and then give an example of college students. The explainations and images were easy to follow although it is a bit long. The video is something that I found interesting I can see how a video would cathc the attention of people who are not willing to read the steps. I also like the fact that you give advise to your audience throughout the instructions.

[nlanger92]

Very good explanation of Excel. I use that program a lot in math and it can be very complicated. This explained it very simply and step by step. Great Job!

[EngUA313]

This was extremely detailed and the pictures and highlighting of certain parts really helped the user understand what to look for. The video of the whole thing really helped as well! -Maryam N.

[blogging313]

Great job on being clear and detailed with each step. Some of the steps seemed a little wordy and could be cut down a little bit but you were very thorough with your descriptions.

N.Hitchcock

[cjmueller]

I thought it was a very detailed tutorial. One aspect I would consider revising is the length of each step. The instructions would be easier to follow if you created sub-sections for each number.

[bmg3]

I found the pictures to be very organized and labeled very effectively.However, the instructions themselves were somewhat lengthy. Overall, good job.

[KH2323]

Very helpful, but Step 2 seems wordy. Breaking up the two sections of Step 2 might make for easier readability.

[LIenglish313]

Explaining the steps to prepare an excel budget is no small feat,
considering all the cell selections and formulas.
Should probably have an final example budget that is filled out more though.

[ksteven1]

This looks great! It's very easy to follow (which is saying something because I'm horrible at Excel).

I like that you added that step about the "difference" column. That was the only thing I was confused about during the testing. This is very well done.

Good job!

[artworker]

Cool! Add the final excel file also.