Budgetting with Excel

When I was young, I snickered when I listened to the sales pitches for what were then called 'home computers'. One of the main benefits, it seemed, was the ability to use spreadsheets to keep your personal accounts. Wowee, I thought, and resumed flying my alien ship through the many minefields of Katakis on my C64.
But now, baby-shit brown keyboards that are the computer, and that can be hooked up to a TV, are a thing of the past. Gone are the days when you could hit your custom-made reboot button and have most of your data still in memory. Now we have mortgages, energy bills and credit cards. Now, we actually could use our computer for keeping our personal accounts.
I've set my Outlook to remind me once per day to check my monetary situation online and take note of the ever dwindling sum of money on my account. Once per month is the happy news that the new salary has arrived; the rest is spent looking at the plummeting graph in the Excel sheet. But if it does nothing else, it keeps me informed of my money status and prevents me from getting any surprises. I recommend it heartily.