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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Excel Templates

I just discovered a great way to have your own financial calculators that you can modify. For example, recently I have been struggling with the fact that I am paying off capitalized interest on my private student loan, which means that the whole payment is currently tax deductible. I had two options: pay off an extra $300/month on that loan or save that $300/month in a savings account.

Mathematically, it turns out that I should save $300/month in a savings account for the first 2 years and then pay off my student loan with those savings in the third year after I have paid off my capitalized interest. There is no way to run an amortization schedule where you can change the payment amount after 24 months and add a lump sump payment in the beginning of the third year. However, that and more can be done with Excel Templates.

I also like the fact that in an Excel template, you can save the worksheet and return to it when you feel like it. If you were to use the BankRate amortization schedule, for example, then you would have to reenter your data each time you wanted to change up your payment.

Excel templates offer amortization of payments, monthly and yearly budgets, expense trackers, net worth analyzers, gas and mileage logs, etc. New templates are added by users, so new ones can sprout up any time. Modify any of the templates to meet your specific needs.

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