Author Topic: money management worksheets for more than one currency  (Read 4006 times)

The Clean Shave

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money management worksheets for more than one currency
« on: August 05, 2012, 04:40:22 AM »
<EDIT, 5/aug/2012, 13.00: mods, I've got a hunch that I ended up posting this in the wrong section, if I'm correct, please move it accordingly. Sorry about the mishap.>

Heya,

Background info
I'm heading off to Sweden for 2 years for a Master's degree, and have several forms of income set up in Euro. The Swedes, however, have not jumped on the EUR bandwagon and have their own currency, the Swedish Kronor (SEK).

While I'm nowhere near god-status, I'm pretty good at working Excel, so I've been tracking my EUR income and expenses in excell since 2009 down to an absurd level of detail with relative ease.

Problem
Thing is, I noticed that my current self developed worksheet does not accommodate foreign currencies. This became painstakingly clear when a peak in income and expenses during my 5 month exchange at an English university was eventually labeled "study in England" instead of the usual "tech", "schooling", "food", "books", etc.

Proposed solution
I want to avoid this flaw in my money management this time around and am looking for a template that I can copy either in part or it's entirety, in order to track:
- regular (monthly, yearly) dwindling expenditures in The Netherlands.
- regular (monthly) income from various sources in The Netherlands.
- regular and irregular expenditures in Sweden.
- potential regular or even irregular income from Sweden.

Call for help
Does anyone know more about this?
Have you encountered this problem yourself, or would you know where I might look for the solution?
Any help at all is much appreciated.
Of course, whatever I come up with eventually, I'd be delighted to share the (anonymized) end result with you.

All the best,

TCS
« Last Edit: August 05, 2012, 05:00:48 AM by The Clean Shave »

arebelspy

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Re: money management worksheets for more than one currency
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2012, 09:15:46 AM »
Lets start with your purpose, to make it easier to figure out a solution.

What exactly are you hoping to accomplish with this?  What do you want the end result to be?

And, separate from that, why don't you just duplicate the excel tab and have everything converted so you can see it in the other currency? (I.e. multiply the EUR by 8.3, or whatever the current exchange rate is, to see it in SEK)?

I'm just not following what you're trying to do I guess.
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The Clean Shave

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Re: money management worksheets for more than one currency
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2012, 10:06:58 AM »
Sorry, I guess it may appear a tad chaotic.

The purpose is purely to monitor income and expenses, in order to keep a grip on costs. The first couple of months of an international move can be messy for a bank account and I want to avoid unnecessary peaks in expenses by monitoring the heck out of it.

As the file currently exists for EUR, it is a simple outline of income and expenses with detailed subsets per row, 1 month per column, displaying 1 calendar year. Several graphs (total income versus total outcome, "essential" versus "non-essential" expenses, etc), are displayed in a different tab, and, since it's only one currency at a relatively stable inflation, reflect both expenses as well as consumption patterns when restricted to a year.

I've considered duplicating the excell tab and introducing an exchange rate which I'd automaticall grab from an online source, but then I'd end up with past SEK amounts at current SEK/EUR valuations. This would affect my graphs about consumption patterns (which is of course acceptable, but not necessarily desirable). In fact, normally I couldn't care less about this and just take an annual average of the exchange rate, which has been very stable. But the EUR has plummetted against the SEK in recent months so it pays off to see the effects of this fluctuation on my spending power.

I've got a vague idea of how to go about this:
- customizing it for .csv exports from my Dutch bank account
- duplicating the necessary tabs, filling in the Swedish expenses by hand
- setting up a function to calculate an average monthly valuation of the SEK/EUR
- ending up with a consolidated statement in EUR specifying income and expenses per source per month

However, I'm interested in whether anyone knows whether an expat out there with sources of income and expenses in more than one country has already figured out how to go about this in an effective manner.

If any more questions arise please do ask. :-)
« Last Edit: August 05, 2012, 10:09:40 AM by The Clean Shave »

arebelspy

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Re: money management worksheets for more than one currency
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2012, 04:45:17 PM »
,
I've considered duplicating the excell tab and introducing an exchange rate which I'd automaticall grab from an online source, but then I'd end up with past SEK amounts at current SEK/EUR valuations. This would affect my graphs about consumption patterns (which is of course acceptable, but not necessarily desirable). In fact, normally I couldn't care less about this and just take an annual average of the exchange rate, which has been very stable. But the EUR has plummetted against the SEK in recent months so it pays off to see the effects of this fluctuation on my spending power.

The more neurotic and OCD you are, the more specific your solution will have to be, but for me I'd do the above and have a few different tabs showing it at various exchange rates so you can project what it'd be like at various exchange rates.

Then maybe have a few tabs that are labeled with the dates and correspond to the exchange rate at that time.  Say "January 2011" "January 2012" etc.  Do it for whatever time period you want (annually, semi-annually, quarterly, monthly, etc.) so you can see the changes in your actualities spending due to that effect.  Then update it every one of those time periods to add a new tab.
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

The Clean Shave

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Re: money management worksheets for more than one currency
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2012, 05:27:46 PM »
The more neurotic and OCD you are, the more specific your solution will have to be, but for me I'd do the above and have a few different tabs showing it at various exchange rates so you can project what it'd be like at various exchange rates.

Then maybe have a few tabs that are labeled with the dates and correspond to the exchange rate at that time.  Say "January 2011" "January 2012" etc.  Do it for whatever time period you want (annually, semi-annually, quarterly, monthly, etc.) so you can see the changes in your actualities spending due to that effect.  Then update it every one of those time periods to add a new tab.

Whoa, that allows for some pretty quick scenario analysis to see how low the Euro can go against the Kronor before it becomes impossible to pay for the basics. Nice! Definitely incorporating that, thanks!

a651234

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Re: money management worksheets for more than one currency
« Reply #5 on: September 02, 2012, 05:06:04 AM »
I'm not trying to bump up any old topics, but being a Dutchman myself (having lived in Sweden) I find this topic of interest. What you could do on top of what arebelspy suggests, is to make use of the external connection function to import exchange rates, check out this youtube video :).

The Clean Shave

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Re: money management worksheets for more than one currency
« Reply #6 on: September 03, 2012, 02:33:19 AM »
Thanks a bunch!
Will do. Am currently starting to settle in so things have been hectic and not much has happened in terms of spreadsheet design.
But the act of trying to meet people has (in this economy) become an incredibly expensive (though entertaining and to a degree rewarding) experience, so I'm looking forward to setting up a functioning money management system again. :-)

 

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