Intro/Disclaimer
Happy Friday fellow readers! This post is going to be about a new topic that we don’t normally talk openly about, but this is something very important to us… personal finance! More importantly, how we manage our personal finances! Now before you click away, at least give this a read and hear us out. If you make it to the end you’ll even get access to download a copy of our free check register spreadsheet! Before we delve in, let’s get something straight: while we’re here to share our perspectives on this topic, this isn’t an end-all-be-all solution to your personal finance journey, nor a substitute for professional financial advice. This is solely to share a little bit about ourselves in this light as well as hopefully provide you with a tool that, although may not be perfect, has worked for us so far (and is constantly evolving too!). So, if you’re seeking tailored recommendations, it’s always wise to consult with a certified expert. Now let’s get started!
What Personal Finance Means to Us
The textbook definition of personal finance is the process of planning and managing personal financial activities such as income generation, spending, saving, and protection1. To us as a couple though, we take the definition of personal finance to a whole new meaning: It is characterized by the foundational principles of trust, support, and honesty. It involves the collaborative effort of both of us to make informed financial decisions, share financial responsibilities, and work towards shared financial goals while fostering an environment where open communication and mutual understanding prevail.
What this Spreadsheet is Designed to do
What started as a simple check register, this spreadsheet has evolved into a simple and straight-forward tool that focuses on three main categories: expenses, savings, and income. However, rather than just putting in your current/past credits/debits, you can also use this tool to budget future expenses given what you know now. For example, if you are salaried and know how much you get paid every two weeks and that value never changes, you can easily track this value well into the future. This feature is HUGE because it easily allows you to plan for upcoming major expenses, as well as forecast how much you need to save up for your future financial goals. And the best part is after you place in all your transactions, you can easily view everything on an intuitive dashboard! For another fun measure, we even included a quick and easy 401K calculator– but remember, it’s a rough estimate, so don’t start planning your retirement party just yet!
What this Spreadsheet is NOT Designed to do
While this tool can provide some idea of insight into the future (assuming you know most of your expenses/income), this isn’t a crystal ball for your finances; it won’t tell you how to spend your money or make decisions for you, so if you’re looking for a one-size-fits-all approach, you’re in the wrong place. Our spreadsheet is here to provide insights and tools, not to replace critical thinking or expert advice. Think of it as a reliable companion on your financial journey, like a map, offering perspectives and data to help you navigate, not dictate.
How to Use this Spreadsheet
Pre-requisites:
- You must have Microsoft excel installed (any version should do, but this version was created on the latest 365 version).
- YOU MUST ALLOW MACROS TO RUN! There are some macro functions in this spreadsheet, so if you get a prompt on whether or not you want to run macros, please click YES! For transparency’s sake, the only macros on the spreadsheet perform the following operations: Create/delete 401k chart, and refresh data from table. If you are not sure how to do this, please refer to the following help links from Microsoft (Note if you are using the mobile version of Excel you will not be able to enable macros):
So for these instructions we’re not going to go into a whole lot of detail on this post because the spreadsheet contains more detailed instructions (found on the “Setup” sheet), but here’s the gist of how to use it: Once your spreadsheet is open, first navigate to the “Setup” sheet and place the information according to the instructions on that sheet. Next, go to the “Check Register” sheet and start filling out entries corresponding to the information you placed in the “Setup” sheet (i.e., income, expense, and savings). Then once you have data populated, go to the “Dashboard” sheet and click the “Refresh Data” button to see the categorized data you populated back in the “Check Register” sheet. To use the 401K calculator, navigate to the “401K Calculator” sheet and type in the required data, then click “Create Chart,” If for any reason you need to modify the data, click “Start Over,” make your changes, then click “Create Chart” again to see the new 401K chart. Please note too that this chart may come up small, so feel free to make the chart bigger by clicking on the corners and dragging your cursor outwards.
Closing Remarks
As always, thank you very much for taking the time to read this (hopefully not so bad, eh?) and we hope you learned something out of it. Most of all, we hope sharing this spreadsheet with you will help guide you on your financial journey as it has for us so far, but please, please, PLEASE be mindful that there’s much more to personal finance than what is on this spreadsheet so do not let this be the end-all-be-all to your financial journey. Cheers to the weekend!
References
- https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/wealth-management/personal-finance/