Awesome Financial Calculators for Microsoft Excel

Posted by Ben

November 18, 2008

I was recently accosted by my credit card company about my autopayments to my credit card. After establishing that they were pleased by the fact that I was paying well over my minimum, it was almost too much. How does that work? Well, when you pay too much to USAA, that extra amount goes towards the next months minimum, and then the next in which case the autopayment is canceled. Thats really GREAT! Yay! Nope.

I can understand why that is I guess, they make a tiny bit more money that way, even after taking some of the penalties off. Multiply my scenario by zillions of people and it just seems silly to not do it that way. Either, way, I am not terribly grumpy about it since I am steadily bringing it down. Before the gentleman got off the phone he asked if there was anything else he could help me with: poor guy didn’t realize that he was talking to a personal finance blogger and that I think about this stuff all the time. After giving him my list of demands, i heard him sigh and I looked at the clock. Poor sap was probably about to get off work, so I told him that I would call back with this little To-Do list on Friday. I can’t wait. It’s in my Outlook calendar and everything. Heres what we are going to do:

Lower my interest rate on my credit card. Its already pretty good, but I am going to give it a shot anyway. After all I am their best customer right?
Increase my car payment. Yes, my vehicle loan is through them as well. I want to add a hundred or two to the monthly payment as that automatically gets applied to the principle. I ultimately want to find out how much faster I can pay it off.
Whats the advantage of their checking account? How does the whole deposit online thing work? What are the terms for ATM fees? When can I tell Suntrust to go and …. well you get the idea.
Money Market competitive? Minimum to get in?
What are the terms for their CDs?

So as you can see, Friday is going to be fantastical. You should do it to, it’ll be fun. But be armed! Here is a list of Financial Calculators that open right up in MS Excel. They were made by a group called Vertex42.

Yea, I know there are few in there that don’t really pertain to banking, but hey, I knew you wanted to see it anyway…its just the kind of guy I am. Careful that you don’t rely too heavily on these as they are not official advice, but a nice collection of easy to use free tools. Let us know what you think!

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