Microsoft Excel is a fantastic tool for both business and personal use. And one of the most powerful uses of Excel for individuals is in tracking your finances.

This guide will walk you through how to create an Excel workbook that will allow you to track your monthly expenses, your cash and credit card spending by category, look at the next three months of income and expenses, as well as look at the bigger picture and calculate your assets, liabilities, net worth, and liquid net worth.

By the time you’re done using this guide you will have created a tracking workbook that you can use on an ongoing basis to measure your financial health and help reach your financial goals. This workbook is based on the principles outlined in Budgeting for Beginners, but you don’t need to have read that book to use this one.

You should, however, have a basic understanding of how to use Microsoft Excel.