--- tags: excel --- # Calculators ### Prelude :beginner: What's the most popular programming / coding language in the world? :muscle: Hint: It's not Java or Python or JavaScript or C or C++ or whatever Tiobe index has it on top these days. Nor is it HTML, nor CSS, for that matter. It's Excel formaulae! Per estimate, 99% of automation out there, have been written in Excel's inbuilt programming paradigm. Excel as a language gives you powerful primitives, that are easy to pick up, and one can start using on real world datasets, to address real needs every day businesses face. Most of you've guessed it already, but for the sake of clarity, we should explicitly mention it - Excel, the programming language; is **different from Microsoft's MS Excel application**. Excel, the programming toolkit, is the core engine of Microsoft Excel. But there happens to be other applications as well, which offer _Excel_ functionalities - Google Sheets, for instance. In this bundle, we cover how you could harness this power for yourself. :sunglasses: Before you hope to be a DIY investor, you need to be comfortable as a DIY excel user. :crossed_swords: No more asking others to share their pre-built excel calculator templates to track your monthly budget or compute XIRR of your stock portfolio. You'll feel empowered to build these on your own, from scratch; and maintain or update the same. --- ### Pre-requisites :100: - :heavy_plus_sign: :heavy_minus_sign: :heavy_multiplication_x: :heavy_division_sign: You don't need to be a programmer or software developer in your day job. If you know some basic Math, like addition / subtraction / multiplication / division; it's good enough. - Access to Google Sheets or MS Excel Excel as a language is fantastic, and if you can afford an Office 365 license, great for you :tada: But most of us cannot or wouldn't want to. Google Sheet supports most Excel functionalities as is, that we'd cover here. If you've a Google account or G-Suite account; you can use [Google Sheets for free](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets) LibreOffice and OpenOffice have their own implementations, called _Calc_. Most likely these would work as well; though we cannot say we've tried. On Mac OSX and iPhone / iPad, [Apple Numbers app](https://www.apple.com/in/numbers/) should be fine too. :waving_white_flag: - Access to a desktop / laptop is preferable It's not a hard requirement; that without it, you won't be able to proceed at all. But given this is a bit programmable in nature, having access to more real-estate on your screen is desirable. :scroll: It isn't as if you cannot do without it, but you'd have a better time if you could get your hands on a laptop or desktop or even a workstation. --- ### Disclaimer :warning: To be clear, this is **not a guided tutorial on MS Excel or Google Sheets**. There are plenty of those available, that have much more depth; if you just google or search in YouTube. :diamond_shape_with_a_dot_inside: This bundle is all about _learning enough excel to be dangerous_, and applying it to your finances. :fencer: