Ok so some quick background. I live hand to mouth. I hate it, but it is what it is.
Most budget programs, spreadsheets, apps, websites fail to account for those of us that don't think about our bills on a monthly basis. I dont give a fat rats a** when TMobile is due, because they're not getting paid until I get paid.
Of course I try to pay everyone with the check BEFORE their due date, but you get the idea.
I dont have a $600 grocery budget for the month, I have a $300 budget every pay day. I dont pay my van payment when its due, I pay with the check that is not rent. Make sense?
I thought it would be awesome to have a spreadsheet that automatically figure my due dates and list them with the check that matches their due date.
I wanted it to be as automatic as possible, mostly so I could learn Excel more. Arrays, named ranges, dynamic named ranges etc etc.
Well I was doing pretty good but then I got lost. I tweaked it so it works for me, but not for everyone. (people with 1st and 15th checks. People with weekly pay dates, etc) There's many bugs, and I'm just curious if anyone wants to give it a once over and offer some suggestions.
Some of the bugs I notice:
1) when I delete a row above the expenses section, one row of the expenses section errors out with a DIV/O. I figured out why the error is happening, but not why...the error IS HAPPENING.
2) If a bill is due weekly, but I get paid bi week, the sheet won't automatically add the 2 amounts together for my check. ie)I put $100 into babysitting every week, I need it to tell me to pay $200 each check. I know I could do a formula that would divide the due date frequency (in this case, 7 days) by my pay date freq (14 days) and if it divides evenly (14/7 = 2), multiply the bill times that. $100*2=$200, but then it gets all funky on the next due date and I just can't figure it out.
3) I had to list (in cells, instead of an array) the due dates of each bill on the sheet and then hide the columns (for appearance reasons) because when I try to enter the formulas as an array the due dates become incorrect. Don't know why. Probably because it would be a nested array at that point.
There's tons more, but whatever.
Also, my ultimate goal would be to have a budget app that will perform some calculations and decide if I can't afford to pay a bill with one check, but i have left over money on the check before, to move it to that check. I know that's some pretty extensive logic and not something that excel could do easily, but it's something to consider.
tl;dr I made a hand to mouth budget and if anyone is feeling like offering some advice, please do so. I'm not looking for you to fix my errors, but maybe check out my named formulas and such and just offer some advice on how to do things better.
note: I hid some rows and columns in the template and forgot to unhide them before uploading. The reason is because a) if i delete the rows, the sheet erros out and if i delete the columns, the sheet wont work, because I suck and couldn't figure out how to get the formulas into an array that works.
link to rs:
https://rapidshare.com/files/459869333/HandtoMouthBudget.xlsx
Most budget programs, spreadsheets, apps, websites fail to account for those of us that don't think about our bills on a monthly basis. I dont give a fat rats a** when TMobile is due, because they're not getting paid until I get paid.
Of course I try to pay everyone with the check BEFORE their due date, but you get the idea.
I dont have a $600 grocery budget for the month, I have a $300 budget every pay day. I dont pay my van payment when its due, I pay with the check that is not rent. Make sense?
I thought it would be awesome to have a spreadsheet that automatically figure my due dates and list them with the check that matches their due date.
I wanted it to be as automatic as possible, mostly so I could learn Excel more. Arrays, named ranges, dynamic named ranges etc etc.
Well I was doing pretty good but then I got lost. I tweaked it so it works for me, but not for everyone. (people with 1st and 15th checks. People with weekly pay dates, etc) There's many bugs, and I'm just curious if anyone wants to give it a once over and offer some suggestions.
Some of the bugs I notice:
1) when I delete a row above the expenses section, one row of the expenses section errors out with a DIV/O. I figured out why the error is happening, but not why...the error IS HAPPENING.
2) If a bill is due weekly, but I get paid bi week, the sheet won't automatically add the 2 amounts together for my check. ie)I put $100 into babysitting every week, I need it to tell me to pay $200 each check. I know I could do a formula that would divide the due date frequency (in this case, 7 days) by my pay date freq (14 days) and if it divides evenly (14/7 = 2), multiply the bill times that. $100*2=$200, but then it gets all funky on the next due date and I just can't figure it out.
3) I had to list (in cells, instead of an array) the due dates of each bill on the sheet and then hide the columns (for appearance reasons) because when I try to enter the formulas as an array the due dates become incorrect. Don't know why. Probably because it would be a nested array at that point.
There's tons more, but whatever.
Also, my ultimate goal would be to have a budget app that will perform some calculations and decide if I can't afford to pay a bill with one check, but i have left over money on the check before, to move it to that check. I know that's some pretty extensive logic and not something that excel could do easily, but it's something to consider.
tl;dr I made a hand to mouth budget and if anyone is feeling like offering some advice, please do so. I'm not looking for you to fix my errors, but maybe check out my named formulas and such and just offer some advice on how to do things better.
note: I hid some rows and columns in the template and forgot to unhide them before uploading. The reason is because a) if i delete the rows, the sheet erros out and if i delete the columns, the sheet wont work, because I suck and couldn't figure out how to get the formulas into an array that works.
link to rs:
https://rapidshare.com/files/459869333/HandtoMouthBudget.xlsx
