Excel Emergency Fund Tracker

Could you guide me on setting up an Excel sheet to automate tracking my emergency fund growth, with goals and milestones? Please detail the necessary steps and formulas.

Certainly! Here's a step-by-step guide to setting up an Excel sheet to automate tracking your emergency fund growth, with goals and milestones: Step 1: Open Excel and create a new workbook. Rename the first sheet as "Emergency Fund". Step 2: In column A, list the months or dates when you will be tracking your emergency fund growth. For example, start from A2 and enter "Month 1", "Month 2", and so on till your desired timeframe. Step 3: In column B, enter the corresponding amounts you expect to have in your emergency fund at each milestone. For example, in B2, enter the amount you desire to have at the end of Month 1, in B3, the amount you desire to have at the end of Month 2, and so on. Step 4: In column C, label it as "Current Amount". In C2, enter the initial amount you have in your emergency fund. Step 5: In column D, label it as "Difference". In D2, enter the formula "=C2-B2". This will calculate the difference between your current amount and the desired amount for each milestone. Step 6: In column E, label it as "Goal Reached". For each month, you can enter "Yes" in the corresponding cell if your current amount is equal to or greater than the desired amount, otherwise enter "No". For example, in E2, enter the formula "=IF(C2>=B2,"Yes","No")". Step 7: To track the growth of your emergency fund over time, you can create a line graph. Select column A and B by clicking and dragging, then click on the "Insert" tab, select the "Line" chart type, and choose the desired graph style. Step 8: To add a formula to calculate the total amount contributed to your emergency fund, in a separate cell, enter the formula "=SUM(C2:Cx)" where "x" is the last row number in column C. Step 9: Finally, to calculate the percentage of your emergency fund goal reached, in a separate cell, enter the formula "=C2/B2". This will calculate the amount reached divided by the desired amount for the current milestone. You can now populate the current amount cell (column C) on a monthly basis and the sheet will automatically calculate the difference (column D), goal reached (column E), and update the graph accordingly.