Technology: Excel Checkbook

Balancing your Checkbook with Excel

The biggest struggle I have in life is remembering to balance my checkbook or write down where I have spent money. Usually I end up with a huge pile of receipts, and dread looking through them.

I Created a Solution

I was never able to find a solution online that was able to meet my needs full. So I took to Excel to create a way for me to to stay up-to-date on the go without much issue. You are able to download a copy of my Checkbook online here. I am going to go over some highlights of what I do with this checkbook, so that you can enjoy it too! First important notice is that if you are spending money will will write it -10.00 so that it will so as money spent.

Checking & Saving Tabs

On the Checking tab, you are able to input your expense, income, deposits, or anything other transactions that occur in your account. At the top of the sheet, there is a place to put the name of your Bank, and your log in information if you have online banking. There is also a legend to show you how to reconcile your checkbook. 

All you will need to do is input the details of the transaction. If the transaction relates to an expense you are tracking on another tab, you will enter the equals sign, then click the expense tab, and select the amount you want to connect it to.

Now when edits are made to your Expense, your checkbook will be up-to-date with the changes. Very helpful for budgeting ahead (you can input estimate amounts and update later with correct amounts).

If you have transactions that are not connected to an expense you can attach an receipt to the description. the below video is a walk through of how to connect to the document you want. I use my Google drive to store my Checkbook and all the documents. That way I am able to access it on the go.

Expense Tabs

The Expense tab is where you are able to keep track of current reoccurring expenses. I keep track of my utilities, credit cards, auto loans, and student loans on these tabs. You have a place to input the expense name, small description, due date, and web site/log int information if you have it.

You are able to input when bills are received, when payments are sent and link to any helpful documents such as bills, receipts, and notifications.

Income Tab

The income tab allows you to keep track of your pending deposits from work. There is space for you to input the needed details about your employer. There is a place for you to customize your wages. You will just need to change it in the one location, and the rest of the sheet will update. You are able to input regular work hours, holiday pay hours, and overtime hours. Deductions are auto calculated as an estimate. You can change them at anytime to the correct amount. There are columns for medical as well, if you don't have this deduction you can set it to 0 or leave it empty.

You are able to link to the net pay column in your checkbook to have your income deposit listed and update-able. Once again very helpful for budgeting ahead (you can input estimate amounts and update later with correct amounts). You can attach pay stubs on the date, same as we did with the expenses.

Video How-To

I have created a small video walk-through of how I use my checkbook and how to create and update the information. Please feel free to check it out, and if you enjoy what you are seeing, please subscribe to stay up to date on all the new items posted.

Let me know if you find this useful at all!

I have found I am able to keep track of my money and bills this way. Please feel free to leave any comment, questions, or suggestions on my Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Youtube, Google+, or Email me!! I always look forward to feedback!!

Self Help: Sparkpeople Explained

SparkPeople In a Nutshell

I have talked about Sparkpeople in the my last post (Self Help: Weight Loss), but I wanted to elaborate and let you in on some finer details.

Website

The SparkPeople website is a great way to learn all the features that are available. You are able to set your goals, enter data, and plan ahead.

Once you log into the site, you are able to view your overage progress for the day. You can see how much you have eaten, what your work outs have burned, and how many calories you have left. This is a great way to know if you have room to munch a bit more, or if you need to work out a bit more.

After you review your In's and out's, you are able to track your other goals as well. They make this simple with sliders. These goals are editable and customizable.

After your done with the additional goals, you are able to connect with communities online. These are great ways to stay involved and motivated. SparkPeople will connect you with communities that are relovent to your life. For example, if you are in your twentys or thirties you will be able to connect with others your age. If you are a mother they will connect you to others who have children the same age. This is a great way to get advice on issues you have in common.

Tracking your Eats

Tracking you eats as well as plan out your meals in advance, so you can know where you stand and plan your shopping. I love this feature, because it are able to print a shopping list.

If you eat the same items for breakfast and lunch, you can create groups, so that it becomes easier to track and enter.

Tracking your Sweats

 Tracking your activities and workouts is fairly simple with SparkPeople. Like your food, you are able to create groups so that if you do the same workouts on a regularly then you can enter it quickly. You can also see your daily totals as well as your weekly goals.

Making progress

SparkPeople make it simple to track your progress by allowing for weight, and measurements to be tracked. That why if your workouts are burning fat, and building muscles you can see it.

Your wellness is displayed as well as last tracked, and you are able to preform a fitness test and health measurements. This is all in an effort to make sure you are doing what is best for you and your body.

Going Mobile

The best part of the SparkPeople is that they allow you to go mobile! They have several apps you can download:

• Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker
• Healthy Recipes
• Nutrition Lookup
• 30-Day Diet Makeover
• Quick & Easy Recipes
• Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

These are to allow you to keep up to date on your eating and activities even while on the go!
Let me know if you can find another site that allows you to keep track of more!! Always willing to try out a new site to help me improve me!!

Self Help: Weight Loss

New Years Resolutions Don't Work

Its a new year, and everyone is making the usual resolutions. The only problem with making a "New Years Resolution" is that its usually to large to maintain!!

Weight Loss you can Keep off

It is important to make a plan that you can keep up with, so you can keep the weight off. I have struggled for years with weight loss. I find something that works, and will stick with it for so long, they I fall back into my old habits. I will lose weight for so long, then when I stop seeing results I just give up.

My resent weight loss is not a new years resolution; I started working towards this before Christmas. I have been trying to make small changes, and make them part of my daily life, so they are harder to forget/stop doing.

How I got started

The first steps I took to make all the changes part of my routine was I didnt change anything for the first 3 weeks. I just started to document my normal routine: what I eat, what I drink, what activities I did. I spent the first 3 weeks just reviewing me, and how I normally function. This allows me to have a better idea of what needs to change, and allows documentation to become part of the daily process. Sparkpeople has a series of apps that allows you to track and document your daily life.

After that first stage, I started to make small meal changes. Either smaller potion sizes, or smarter choices. Using SparksPeople I was able to set a weight loss goal that was health, and a base idea of how many calories I should be taking in. I was also able to track water intake on the site as well.

Read more about SparksPeople in my Blog post- Self Help: SparkPeople Explained!!

As my food intake started to become more manageable, I started to work on my activities. I Pedometer App for Andriod, there is a similar app for iOS too. I set a weekly goal of how many miles I want to walk, and then break that down to a daily step goal. I did use the app for about 2 weeks before setting goals. I wanted to make sure I was going to be challenging myself.
downloaded an app for my cell phone that counts my steps. This way I am able to see how active I am at work and socially. I use the

Progress

So far I have been staying on top of this fairly well. I did us the down town of the holidays to start this process because it allowed for some research time. Not everything that works for me will work for you. Sometimes it requires some trial and error. I will continue to make posts and updates on my weight loss progress. Please feel free to check it out.

As always, please check out my Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Youtube, and Google+, or Email me!! I always look forward to feedback!!

DIY: Homemade Luandry Soap

Making your own Laundry Soap

I have found that one thing I completely ENJOY doing is making laundry soap for my family. Not only is it cheaper, it is something I am able to involve my son. I am also to able to ensure that there is nothing harmful in our laundry. I have seen several people posting on Pinterest about it, and finally gave in and tried my own recipe for the powder soap. I always was able to re-purpose several containers to help reduce the need to purchase new.

I started out with a bit of shopping. My list included washing soda, borax, a bar of fels-naptha, cheese grater. I re-purposed an old mayo jar, pickle jar, and large mayo container.I  suggest once you open the washing soda & borax that you place them in air tight containers because they tend to become a hard mass that you have to grate back into a powder. And always keep the soap in an air tight container after you make it.

Recipe:

• 1 bar Fels-Naptha
• 1 1/2 cup Borax
• 1 1/2 cup Washing Soda

I measure out the Borax and washing soda, and place into my storage container. I use and old Tide box to grate the bar of soap. Once I have the full bar grated, I place all the shavings into the storage container. The the only thing I was scared the first time I made this soap was that I was grating it wrong, or that not fine enough. So I wanted to make sure I showed what my grated soap looked like. I have had no issues with this in our washing machine. Been using it now for about 6 months.

Once I have all three ingredients in the container, I place the lid on it and let my son shake shake shake it. Usually I stop her a few times to check to make sure it is mixing well. When doing laundry we use only one tablespoon per load. This soap does work well enough to clean the messes my 3 year old can create as well as the greasy Harley mess my husband makes. I switched to my own soap but never told anyone in the house. After about 3 week, I asked if.laundry was still clean and good- no one seemed to notice the change.