Cost Tracking Spreadsheet?

wesley8808

I am about to embark on finishing my basement, but wanted to track my costs.

Does anyone know of a decent spreadsheet for estimating costs and tracking them?

I don't know crap about excel!

Daniel Holzman

If you don't know anything about Excel, chances are you aren't going to like commercial spreadsheets, which are often specific applications of Excel to estimating. But for finishing a basement, I can't imagine why you need a complicated spreadsheet, just track the costs by hand, I mean, what do you have, some lumber, drywall, paint, maybe some tile? People have been making budgets for 50,000 years without computers, the Egyptians built the pyramids, and so far as I know, they used papyrus to track their costs.

wesley8808

True, but in the modern world with iPhone Apps, iPads, Windows 7, etc I didn't know if someone might have had a basic spreadsheet they could recommend.

I am computer literate, just not proficient enough to put together a spreadsheet detailing cost where it adds up against a budget etc. Or if it was broken down by phase.

Yoyizit

What are your inputs and what are your desired outputs? We can fill in the cell formulas for you.
The '$' symbol comes in handy for this type of thing along with formatting and clicking and dragging cell contents.

It's very repetitive. Getting a format that looks pleasing on the screen is half the job. I had the 4 pound, $40 book on Excel but I learned more from a co-op student college kid than I did from the book.

Jim F

Excel is the way to go. My excel experience is more focused on statistics but it is basically a big multitasking calculator that saves a lot of time and well worth learning.

Tried uploading a sample .xls file but wasn't able to do it.

Scuba_Dave

I use excel & just list the items I need/buy
QTY of item
Then cost
Multiply out & then total
There's always more that I need, I just keep adding on
Or you can just track total purchases (each receipt) if you don't want it itemized

If you want a rough idea in advance:
HD, Lowes or a lumber store might have some software where you can input room size & it will give you an estimate

I make a zip file of excel to upload them here

wesley8808

Yeah, that is really all I did. I made a running list of materials I need, went to Lowes and priced it out. Then have been doing some internet research for some better costs if they are out there.

I appreciate the advice!

Jim F

Hey that zip file worked. This is something like I might do with excel. It is formulated so you can enter your item names in the first column, next price, then number of item. It is formulated to give you a line item total, an overall total then subtract from your budget, say it was 20000. You can enter any numbers you want in the cells it should total everything up.

Attached Files

Basement Budget.zip (2.8 KB, 750 views)

rustyjames

I hear you, Excel really is worth learning.

Yoyizit

Can you step me through how you loaded an executable file to this forum?

Jim F

Like Dave said just put it in a zip file. After I saved it to my desktop, I right-clicked then selected send to, then compressed (zip) folder. Other ways, I'm sure but that's the way I know.

wesley8808

Thank you for the help! That excel works perfect.

I just want to keep track of what I am spending so the whole thing doesn't get out of control.