About this site
A brief outline of how this website came about and how I came to create the Excel budget book offered here.
The idea to design a budget book for Excel and to offer it as a download on this website, which was handcrafted from scratch, did not come overnight. At first, I didn't have a clue what Excel actually is and what I can essentially do with it. I associated the terms "Excel" and "spreadsheet" with employees sitting in cubic offices hammering numbers into computer terminals or top-managers presenting ominous quarterly figures at a conference. As I became more familiar with Excel and its spreadsheet functions, I gradually learned that it is also possible to manage data for private purposes relatively easyly and effectively.
The background for my interest in a housekeeping / budget book was that I was looking for an uncomplicated yet effective way for me as an average consumer to get a better overview of my income and expenses and to make them transparent without having to spend a lot of money on it or make myself dependent on third-party providers. My first port of call was the World Wide Web. What I found there was informative but did not fully meet my expectations: Some budget books were simply too expensive for me or they were linked to monthly or annual subscriptions. Other budget books were free but contained annoying advertisements or could only be used via the Internet. That's when the idea of compiling my own private budget book came to me. I wanted to be self-sufficient and also did not fancy setting up additional online accounts and managing passwords or login data.Inspired by some promising approaches to a digital budgeting tool in my online research, I ventured into Excel to try my hand at a simple, home-made Excel budget book tailored to my needs. I've always had a soft spot for programmatic tinkering - it all started with a C64 (for some of you this name will surely bring back memories). This is also where my interest in creating and tinkering with my own websites, like this one, comes from. So I shouldn't have been surprised that the idea of having my own budget book stuck with me. Gradually more and more functions were added. You can see the result here. I have been using this budget book for a few years now and even though more functions have been added over time, I find that it has not lost its ease of use. On the contrary, this budget book helps me to plan my income and expenses and for me it's always nice to see how all functions fulfil their purpose - at least I have not become aware of any error in the years of my use.
As a last conclusion, I had the idea of putting the fruits of my labour online and linking it to this site. This project was born out of interest and curiosity. The benefit of my work is of course in the eye of the beholder. If you are interested in my budget book or even consider buying it, then I am of course happy about this encouragement. :)Housekeeping Budget Spreadsheet
