By Nancy Buchanan, for Office at Home

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• Evaluate where you are today

• Decrease expenses to increase equity

• Earn more to increase equity

• Make long term plans

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With this article I would like to highlight some Microsoft Office tools you can use to help get your financial house in order, whether your goal is to weather economic storms or to pave the way for future prosperity.

Evaluate where you are today

Assets – Liabilities = Equity

For example, if your house is worth $200,000 and you owe $150,000 on it, you would calculate the equity you have in your home as:

$200,000 (your home’s value) - $150,000 (the liability against your home) = $50,000

To get the big picture of your finances, you can download the Net worth calculator for Excel. This template makes it easy for you to plug in your assets and liabilities so you can estimate your net worth as of right now.

Net worth calculator in Microsoft Office Excel.

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Decrease expenses to increase equity

Decreasing expenses is not easy, but there are some tools available to help you get a handle on your spending habits:

• Personal budget worksheet for Excel. When finances are tight, mapping out your monthly budget will help you make decisions about what you can do without and how much is available for spending money or recreation.
• Credit card use log for Excel. While it is a good idea to set a budget for how much you purchase with your credit card each month, that can be difficult when you and your spouse each carry the same credit card. We use this credit card use log to quickly tally expenditures to minimize surprises when the credit card statement arrives.
• Lifetime savings calculator for Excel . This eye opening tool helps you calculate how much money you would save over time if you purchased a less expensive (generic) version, or went without a regular purchase altogether. According to this calculator, if I could forego my $3.85 mocha every morning, which is questionable, I would save over $13,000 before retirement. Wow!
• Charitable gifts and donations tracker for Excel. Another way to decrease expenses is to carefully track expenditures that could possibly result in tax deductions. I have a file folder for taxes each year, and as I add receipts for items that could impact taxes I just mark down those that could possibly qualify as a charitable gift or donation.

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Earn more to increase equity

Decreasing expenses is not easy, but there are some tools available to help you get a handle on your spending habits:

• Car for sale flyer for Word. If you have an extra set of wheels you can part with, consider selling them using this flyer to help generate much needed cash.
• Garage sale sign for Word. Why not turn your gently used merchandise into cash with a garage sale? Just customize this sign, print it, and then put it up to help attract bargain shoppers. You can also use it with the multi-family garage sale calculator for Excel to make it easier for you to track items from neighbors.
• Stock investment performance tracker for Excel. Use this tracker to record your stock purchases and sales. This tracker is very also very handy during tax time to help identify costs of stocks sold.

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Make long term plans

After you have evaluated your current net worth and put plans in place to maximize assets and minimize liabilities, you can use these tools to help shape long term plans that impact your personal finances:

• Wedding budget planner for Excel. If a wedding is in your future, this spreadsheet will scare you to death. OK, it will just help you outline the going cost of celebrating your eternal love.
• Mortgage qualification worksheet for Excel. Use this worksheet to evaluate for yourself how much you could afford to borrow on a mortgage based on your existing monthly income and expenses.
• College costs calculator for Excel. Use this tracker to record your stock purchases and sales. This tracker is very also very handy during tax time to help identify costs of stocks sold.
• Retirement checklist for Excel. This worksheet asks key questions like where you plan to live and how so you can determine for yourself whether you are ready to retire.

With these Office tools you can assess where you are today, work to increase your equity, and then put that equity to use to help you achieve your long term goals.

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