Outsource Your Brain: Excel Can Help You with Your Skills

Looking at the next two skills on that list of 101 I should have:

4. List your monthly expenses

5. See all of your accounts in one place

This makes me think of Excel. In college, I took three personal software classes to get out of taking a foreign language class, and they have been, by far, the most useful classes I have ever taken. I can tell you that if you are scatter-brained, learning Excel is the best thing you can do for your money rehab. It's like outsourcing your brain.

Excel is like the mind of those of the Money Gifted variety. It can add up large numbers, just knows when your bills are coming in, and can help you see the big picture.

Basic Excel: You double-click, you enter text or number, you hit enter. Booyah. At the very least, you can organize facts into a grid.

There are a gazillion videos to learn Excel. It is highly recommended that those suffering from money issues use it, or some other money software, on their way to money rehab.

My Budget book: I made a checkbook page that, as a money idiot, I abandoned on 3/3.

Oh, back when I had a nice, largish paycheck (that yes, I voluntarily left to move to Seattle). Oh, back when I had a fourth digit in my bank account. Oh man, I just realized Taco Bell is on there. How embarrassing.

Bills: There's one sheet I'm actually still using. I've put this up before. It's got all my bills, organized by the date I have to pay it online or the date it will come out of my account automatically, which I hate, but some places won't do anything but automatic withdrawal.

The old budget: I still haven't deleted the budget I made when I was making better money. Oh Jeez, I even made a pie chart. I even had a saving for surprises and an emergency fund. This looks a whole lot like Step 2.

Yeah, that lasted about two seconds.

Retirement: Then there's my retirement page. The one thing I've done right financially is contribute to my 401(k). This, we see, was last updated last December. I had, emphasis on the past tense, about seven grand, and a plan to have $10,000 in there by the age of 30, if I kept putting $134 in there every month. With the S&P downgrade debacle, plus now working a job with no benefits, this plan is on hold. I don't even want to look at what it's worth now.

The Embarrassing Debt: This sheet is called Paying Back Mom. Late April was the last time my mom saw anything coming back her way. After my second job waiting tables, I would come in and hand over all my cash. It felt good. This remaining debt of $567 is about a third of what it was, but it still hangs over my head.