Family Budget Project in Microsoft Excel

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Introduction

Budgeting is a crucial practice that helps to achieve goals through the efficient use of money. Planning budgets can be beneficial both on corporate and family levels. Family budgeting is crucial for improving financial well-being. First, budgeting helps to distribute family income to achieve satisfactory living. Second, budgeting helps to control unplanned events by reducing costs when needed. Finally, budgeting is crucial for improving savings potential.

Microsoft Excel is of the basic tools that can be used for budgeting. It includes all the needed functions and its interface is intuitive. At the same time, there are many free online lessons that can help anyone master the basics needed to create a family budget. This paper provides a realistic example of a family budget that was created using Microsoft Excel.

Discussion

In order to make a realistic example of a family budget, it was necessary to select relevant demographic data of a family. I imagined the following situation: I, Hnd Qasim, am married to Mohammed Qasim. We have two children: a seven-year-old daughter, Jumana, and a three-year-old son, Ali. We live in a three-bedroom house in the suburbs with good schools. I drive a Ford Explorer van, and my husband drives a Toyota Corolla.

The suggested format for the budget has three types of tabs: demographic data, months, and summary. Different kinds of tabs have varying formatting, while months tabs have similar formats. The similarity in formats was achieved by uniting all the months in one group and editing the group. All the tabs are cross-referenced, so the changes in one tab will modify all the others. For instance, monthly budget tabs reference the income in the demographic tab. This is called 3d referencing, and it is crucial for making the document as handy as possible. 3D referencing also reduces the number of needed calculations and decreases the probability of error.

The demographics tabs include all the basic information about family and associated expenses. The information included is names of all family members, marital status, incomes, housing choice and costs, car choices and cost. All the data is visually divided into four categories: basic demographics, income, home, cars. The information was subdivided to make the tab more esthetically pleasing and help the viewer understand the information. The page also includes headers and footers in case a printed copy is needed. This page may also include a family photo.

Month tabs include budget breakdown using 25 categories. The purpose of budget breakdown is to compare how the budgeted amount differs from the actual spending. The tab uses conditional formatting to mark positive difference green and negative difference red. It helps the viewer to understand what categories should be paid attention to. Significant deviations from the budgeted amounts are explained using comments. For instance, my March tab includes a comment that my car blew a tire and I had to replace it at the cost of $540. Some information is put in manually, while others, such as income, escrow, income tax, and house expense, are filled in using formulas and referencing.

Summary tabs consist of two pages. The first page is filled with sums of all the numbers, including budgeting amounts, expenses, and income, using 3d referencing. The expenses that were different from the budgeted amounts are highlighted using conditional formatting. The purpose of the summary page is to see how the local differences between budgeted and actual spending affect the big picture. The second page includes summary information about expenses with a decreased number of categories and a pie chart of expenses.

Even though it was initially suggested to distribute the expenses into 7 categories, I found it impossible to include savings and income tax into any of them. It is also worth mentioning that even though the family pays off many loans, such as mortgage and car loans, these expenses were included in other correlating categories, such as housing and car. The loans categories include only credit card payments. According to the analysis, the family spends most of the money on income tax and miscellaneous expenses. Before the activity, I believed that the majority of money is spent on food. However, my opinion was biased as judged on the emotional level. I spend money on regular payments, entertainment and miscellaneous things without noticing it, which may create a hole in the budget or decrease savings.

Excel has a user-friendly interface that can be understood by almost anyone. However, I encountered major complications with conditional formatting. While it was easy to make rules for the difference column on the months pages, the summary page was challenging to format. I had to create 50 rules manually, as every cell referenced a different corresponding cell. I believe that there should be a more convenient method for approaching the issue; however, I failed to find it.

Conclusion

Budgeting is extremely important for the conscious distribution of family income. Microsoft Excel is an optimal tool for creating a family budget as it includes all the needed functions. One does not need to have special skills to create a budget. Even though it may be time-consuming to create a template for a family budget, it does not require much time to update the file when expenses occur.

Click Here To Order Now!

Family Budget Project in Microsoft Excel

Do you need this or any other assignment done for you from scratch?

We have qualified writers to help you.

We assure you a quality paper that is 100% free from plagiarism and AI.

You can choose either format of your choice ( Apa, Mla, Havard, Chicago, or any other)