📗 Excel & Google Sheets for Students · Lesson 7 of 7
Project: a student budget
Income, expenses, categories, a pivot and a chart.
The structure
| Transactions sheet | Date, Description, Category, Amount (one row per expense) |
|---|---|
| Summary sheet | Each category with =SUMIF(Transactions!C:C, A2, Transactions!D:D) |
| Income | Part-time job, financial aid refund, family support |
| Balance | =Total income − Total expenses |
Categories
Rent/housing, groceries, dining out, transportation, phone, textbooks and supplies, subscriptions, fun, savings. Keep the list short and use Data validation (a dropdown) so categories stay consistent.
Insights
- Make a pivot table or a SUMIF summary by category
- Add a pie or bar chart of spending
- Add a column for % of total: =B2/SUM($B$2:$B$10)
- Find the one category you could cut and set a savings goal with a monthly target
Tip
💡 Check subscriptions: many students pay for overlapping streaming and app services — and student discounts exist for most of them.
✏️ Practice: your turn
- Log one month of real or estimated expenses
- Summarize by category with SUMIF or a pivot table
- Make a chart of spending
- Set one savings goal and a monthly target
✏️ Online spreadsheet: practice formulas without installing anything
🧠 Quick quiz
Answer all 4 questions correctly to mark this lesson as done.
0 of 4 correct
All lessons in Excel & Google Sheets for Students
- 🎓 1. A grade tracker with weighted averagesSUMPRODUCT, absolute references and “what do I need on the final?”
- 🧪 2. Cleaning and formatting lab dataTables, number formats, rounding, sorting and filtering
- 🔀 3. IF, COUNTIF and AVERAGEIFLabel results and summarize by condition
- 🔍 4. XLOOKUP and VLOOKUPPull matching data from another table
- 🧮 5. Pivot tablesSummarize hundreds of rows in a few clicks
- 📊 6. Charts for reportsPick the right chart, label it and keep it clean
- 💵 7. Project: a student budgetIncome, expenses, categories, a pivot and a chart