Hi James,
One of the pages on my web site has to do with budgets. It’s a short page, and takes into consideration that there are four basic pay periods for individuals not working under contract (IRS Form 1099 workers). On it, I’ve included four spreadsheet files that are Excel compatible. These are blanks, with calculations that carry over from month to month, and are not too involved. I wanted them to be useful for people that have basic computer skills, but feel uncomfortable with traditional budget software packages.
I also included a link to OpenOffice, which is an open source offering that duplicates Microsoft Office. OpenOffice is free, and can be setup within a few minutes of the download, and will read just about all Microsoft Office files, including those spreadsheets I wrote.
See:
Thanks, – K.R.