if you are reading this, The fact that you are concerned about creating a personal budget is the first step to your financial freedom (whatever that means...it sounds good, though)
The reason I use Excel when working with my home budget is that I have complete flexibility in how I keep track of the information. For example, I like to use cell comments to explain certain budgeted items in more detail (such as the fact that in May, there is Mother's Day and a couple of birthdays to remember).
Creating a simple personal budget (even if it is only on paper) is one of the first steps in gaining control of your spending habits. BUT, I strongly recommend using Quicken to keep track of your expenses. A budget isn't much good if you don't track what you are spending your money on.
I started out using Excel to do everything, but converted to Quicken after a friend showed me how easy it was to keep track of checks, credit card charges, etc. I still end up exporting reports from Quicken into Excel, though.
Tags:
Budget