How Accountants Use Spreadsheets Outside of Work
If you are an accountant or CPA like me, you have likely developed lots of spreadsheet skills over the course of your career that play an integral role in how you do your job. But where else can these skills be utilized? Today, I'm going to jump into a few examples of how your spreadsheet skills can be put to work outside of your job!
#1 - Budgeting and Personal Finance
The most obvious and the most useful way to use a spreadsheet outside of work is for your personal finances. You can make detailed budget breakdowns that outline spending by category, track savings, and create shorts to help visualize your account and earnings. While every accountant will have a different level of preference for the amount of time they put into their personal finances, it's important to have a basic budget at the very least. Personally, I'm the kind of accountant who made a mortgage amortization schedule to track my mortgage payments for tax planning purposes, but you can choose what's best for you!
#2 - Home Inventory
Spreadsheets are incredibly useful in organizing information, and the most commonly forgotten thing in my household is the amount of supplies that we have on hand. In the past, I've used spreadsheets to track the amount and rate of use of certain household supplies to keep myself informed of something that is hidden in a closet somewhere and to reduce waste. Just taking the time to write things down in a spreadsheet can also be an effective way to just see everything that is otherwise hidden in a pantry or closet.
#3 - Calendars
Some of you might already be using your email calendar as a way to organize your life. If you're one of those people, great! If not, you might find it useful to create a calendar in Excel that you can play around with to help plan your life. Between vacations, regular gym visits, going out to eat with friends, and the consistent organizational challenges that modern Life creates, and Excel spreadsheet could be just what you need to organize your schedule. I've personally used an Excel calendar to help plan out what days of vacation I'm going to take during the year and it has been incredibly useful for visualizing the fact that I don't take vacations as often as I should.
Don't let those spreadsheet skills go to waste. Take the knowledge you've gained from working hundreds of hours in Excel and use them to improve your life outside of work!