Before the start of this semester, my use and understanding of the Microsoft Excel program was at a very limited level. Between this class and a couple of my other classes this semester, I have really began to understand how to use Excel and how it can be such a useful resource. Excel can be used for many important things in life, such as creating a budget for a family or businesses and even to show statistics in graphs.

                While I don’t really have a big use for Excel right now in my life outside of school, I can see a few ways how it could be useful to plan my finances. I could see myself using Excel to create a budget to show the amount of money I’m earning for my income as well as for expenses such as gas clothes, and school. I could also use some of the formulas we have earned to budget, for instance I could say that I want to save 10% of my income for the future and created a separate column just for that data. Another way I could Excel in my daily life could be to create a schedule of when I have to be at school and work. By entering this data in to Excel I could easily be able to find time frames where I have extra time available to do homework or spend time with my family and friends. Even though my use of Excel right now is limited to school, I can see how it could be used to organize and plan my finances and allow to save money for the future.

                Even though I don’t use Excel much right now, it is going to be a very important and frequently used tool for me in the future. I am an Accounting major, so as I continue in school to get my degree it is going to be something I use frequently in order to learn the nuances of accounting and finance. After I get out of school, Excel will be even more useful to me in order to create budgets and do taxes for clients using different styles and formats to make it easier to read. It is very important that I am able to retain my knowledge of the Excel program in order to be able to use it in my career field. But I am fairly sure by the time I graduate from Lenior-Rhyne, I will be using excel pretty frequently.