DIY Planner - Financial - Comments

Financial Resolution Great Program!

wbb — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 12:20:29 -0500

Been using this spreadsheet since first posted. Modified to fit my budget items. This is a great set of sheets to use as you need. Don't have debts but have some big home expenses coming this year. Have roughly plotted regular expenses into the proper months and can now work at cutting where we can so have money to fix the house AND have cash for fun things through out the year.

Lets me see and be mindful of our resources.

Health, Love and Prosperity to All!

re weekly receipts Envelope

southee — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:26:01 -0500

just wanted to add my thanks

Correction made

jordanjm — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:45:11 -0500

Thanks for pointing out my error. I have corrected my spelling.

Spelling correction

Bobbs — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:41:39 -0500

The part of a loan repayment which refers to the amount borrowed is actually known as principal.

The word principle has a completely different meaning.

I couldn't bite my tongue about this, given that the author made a point of (mis)defining the word.

Good Series

wbb — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:00:10 -0400

17 yrs ago when things were very tight for me I worked hard on my budget/expenses, even to the point of knowing which months were higher than others. Taxes, insurance payments, etc. Most things paid by check back then. Each month on the first went to the bank and pulled out all my alloted cash for the month, gas, food, entertainment, and put them in envelopes for each week. Rarely carried cash beyond what I was going to purchase. Did have a $20 bill hidden in wallet for emergencies. Didn't carry a Ccard. Learned to cut back on water, saving the water before the shower got hot for laundry, plants, garden in summer. Tried capturing shower water too as it has little soap. Adjusted refig lower, but safe. Lids on pans on stove. At the time had a 60 call landline fone plan. Most calls made from work. Heat rises and cold drops so lived more upstairs in winter, basement in summer and using less elec to be comfortable. Covered windows with blankets, everything to cut costs. Cut out cable. The end of that year I'd managed to save 25% of my severely reduced income and had 100's in cash squirreled away from the envelope system. -Each week would pullout cash not spent.

Learned a lot those years, still very frugal in many areas and can cut back to survival mode in a heartbeat. The books "Tightwad Gazette" helped me to see this as something good, doable, creative rather than I was poor, bad, less than...

Thanks!

krisalis903 — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:25:19 -0400

This is such a great template, thanks so much for sharing it. I actually reuse letter-sized envelopes for these. All I do is print out the templates on plain white paper (or the reverse side of used paper), trim them down to size, and then use spray adhesive to adhere them to the front of the used envelope (I scrapbook so I have spray adhesive around). Works like a charm :)

other format besides pdf?

peeper7 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:59:41 -0400

Hey I was just wondering if you could send this to me in the open office format? I am obsessed with fonts and fancying things up, so it would be nice to be able to use some of my fonts with it. Is that possible?
Thanks in advance

I heart your envelopes!!!!

ninjahippies — Sun, 1 Mar 2009 18:39:18 -0500

Hi Blowncue!

I wanted to let you know that your envelope template has been the single most useful DIY template that I have used so far. Last year (2008) in February I downloaded your template and printed 20 envelopes. I use them to track all of my receipts before I enter them into Quicken. When I went to get my taxes done my agent was FLABBERGASTED by how organized my receipts were! While flattering, the real reason I listed my receipts in your envelopes first was because I was trying several different financial tracking applications and needed something I could refer back to if (and when) I screwed up and needed to start over.

Your envelopes are so easy and convienent to use that I have printed out a new set of 25 for 2009, and can't imagine using anything else.

Thanks again for a GREAT idea!
~ Ninjahippies

Thank You

wbb — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 05:15:51 -0500

Keep trying to use programs like Quicken,GNUportable and I hate them. Takes too long to do. Fall back to the spreadsheets I made on my original Mac and a dot matrix printer. One is a one page yearly budget and the other is a one page Net Worth summary. Both have served well, but I keep wanting more detail on how I'm progressing on the budget. Your SS did it for me. Was able to put in my own budget items and added a Yearly Expense sheet for a yearly total of planned expenses and running Total of Actual Expenses. Your SS showed me how grab the monthly locations. For some items I didn't have any idea which months I might expend, so I just put them in January and colored the block yellow. I may figure something better on that as time goes on.
Again, thank you for sharing.
WBB

Used your work

zippytex — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:47:43 -0500

Hi, thanks for the template! I used your hard work and changed it just a bit and made a great check register! I also made an envelope to keep track of my diy shopping..oh my! Thanks for your time and effort! :)

Thank you

Blakeney — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:31:44 -0400

Thank you so much. This is honestly the very first financial explanation I have ever read that seemed to be clear and written in terms a layman can understand. It is very much appreciated and will be valuable to me in the future.

love these envelopes!

ninjahippies — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:34:19 -0400

Just wanted to let you know I've been using your envelopes since Feb, and I LOVE them. I made my resolution this year to learn to Quicken (or something similar) and have been trying about 2 dozen different financial apps (stuck with Quicken. sigh) but no matter what happens, if I need to re-enter everything or just need to return something, I can find it easily with your envelope.

I don't generate as many receipts as some, but I do mark Bank with a shortened acct number or the name of my credit card. I love the category at the end - makes it really easy to enter into Quicken.

I would love an additional checkbox for "Entered" - right now I just put a red dot next to each line to mark when I've entered the receipt into Quicken. What I love most about these envelopes is that I can dump my receipts into them daily, and when I get around to entering them into Quicken all I have to do is grab the latest envelope!

Thanks a ton!
Ninjahippies

Mac, at least

jonglass — Fri, 7 Mar 2008 21:47:44 -0500

On my Mac, I can simply drag the zip file to my icon on the Dock, and NeoOffice or OpenOffice will open it. I can also open the file from the open-file dialog with the zip extension.

Alternately, you _could_ just open the Excel, xls file in OOo the same way.

-Jon

Change the file name

ygor — Fri, 7 Mar 2008 20:55:40 -0500

You probably have a file named "monthly_cashflow_plans_v1.2.zip" sitting there, yes ?

Rename it to "monthly_cashflow_plans_v1.2.ods" and then Open Office should open up when you double-click on it.
-----------------------------------
"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson)

Monthy Cashflow

Stanley — Fri, 7 Mar 2008 04:52:33 -0500

Hi
I am trying to get a handle on my finances and it appears your cashflow sheet may help a lot. I am unsure the difference between v1.2.ods and v1.2.xls.

Also once I download it, how do I get it into my open office program? I have v1.2.ods sitting on my desktop in a zip file and am unsure what to do with it.

I would apreciate help on this matter.

Thank you for making the spreadsheet and thank you in advance for advice.

D*I*Y Planner - Financial - Comments