How to Budget, Save, Get Out of Debt, and Take Control of Your Money for Good
Julian R. Sterling
These are the companion files of Personal Finance for Beginners by Julian R. Sterling.The book on Amazon →
One Excel workbook that puts figures on the chapter that matters most, getting out of debt, re-verified
and now computed month by month throughout: twenty-six checks, every one green. Around it, a blank
version for your own debts, twelve working documents to print, forty questions that mark themselves, and three
cases the book names and never takes to a number. All free. Nothing is gated behind a sign-up, and no email
address is asked for.
Six workbooks, the printable documents and the read-me. Each group below can also be
downloaded on its own. Last revised 24 September 2026.
Get an email if these files are corrected
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Chapter 7 says high-interest debt can trap you in a cycle where you pay and pay yet the
balance barely shrinks. Here is that sentence as a number. On a 3,200 balance at 22.9 per cent,
the month’s interest is 61.07 and the minimum payment is
81.53. So 20.46 reaches the debt and three quarters of the
payment does nothing but stand still.
Nothing about that ratio is a lack of discipline. It is the arithmetic of a minimum set as a
percentage of a balance that interest keeps refilling, and it would do the same to anybody. Pay
only minimums on all five debts in the example and they clear in 258 months —
twenty-one and a half years, repaying 1.78× what was borrowed. Add 250 a month of
surplus and the same debts clear in 30 months. Twenty-one years, or two and a
half.
What the snowball costs. The book says attack the highest rate for efficiency or
the smallest balance for motivation, and pick the one you will stick with — then declines to
say what the choice is worth. It is worth 224 and one extra month: about seven
pounds a month. Which makes the book’s advice right rather than diplomatic. If clearing
whole debts early is what keeps you going, buy the motivation.
And a question worth asking before the argument: on these debts the smallest is the store card,
and the store card is also the most expensive — so both methods attack the same debt first.
Small balances and high rates travel together more often than people expect. The file tells you
whether your two methods actually disagree.
What the emergency fund costs. The book says building a starter fund while still
in debt is wise. It is — but it is not free, and it does not pay for itself. It costs about
347 in extra interest, and roughly the same whether the emergency arrives or not.
That is the premium on an insurance policy, and what it buys is that a surprise does not land on
your most expensive card at the worst moment and end the plan. Most people who fail at debt payoff
fail after a surprise, not because of the rate. “It is wise” asks you to
believe something; “it costs about 350, and here is what that buys” lets you
decide.
The last sheet is a blank calculator for one debt of yours: how much of your payment is interest,
how long it takes at what you pay now, and what adding ten or twenty pounds a month would save.
That last answer is usually far larger than people expect.
Re-verified on 24 September 2026: every figure above reproduces, and none was wrong. The minimums-only
result and the six emergency-fund results used to be typed in; two new sheets now compute them month by
month and return the same numbers. Stated exactly, the fund costs 347.51 when the emergency arrives and
338.49 when it does not, and the surplus saves 8,853.38 of interest against minimums only, not the
8,853.07 the rounded, typed figure gave. Twenty-six checks.
Take your most expensive debt. Multiply the balance by the rate, divide by twelve — that is what
it costs you this month. Subtract that from what you actually pay it. The difference is all that
reaches the debt. If it is small, you now know why progress has felt impossible, and it is not
because of anything you did. If it is negative, the balance is growing while you pay it
— which is the situation to seek reputable local help for rather than grind at alone.
What the arithmetic does not settle
It cannot tell you what help is available where you live, what options exist for someone in serious
difficulty, or whether any particular offer is reputable — and some offers aimed at people in
debt are predatory. It cannot price the relief of clearing a debt, which is real and is most of why
the smallest-first method works for the people it works for. And it assumes you can hold a surplus
steady, which is the hardest part and the one no spreadsheet helps with.
The same model, for your own debts
The workbook with its 34 inputs emptied. Enter your own debts; the checks sheet counts what is still missing and runs ten tests that hold for any inputs.
Chapter 7 · Appendix G
A blank debt plan
Up to five debts with their rates and minimum rules, the surplus you can add, the emergency and the fund, and one debt of your own. The file gives the first payment split into interest and principal, minimums only month by month, both methods side by side, what a starter fund costs with and without the emergency, and what adding to one payment saves. Every sheet stays blank until its inputs are in.
The book’s inputs are listed in a text file inside the archive. Type them back in and the file returns 258 months on minimums only, 30 against 31 for the two methods, and 347.51 for the fund.
Twelve pages to print and use. A4, with margins wide enough for US Letter.
Chapter 7 · Appendix G · the budget
Twelve working documents
The debt list, every debt on one page. The one calculation to do tonight, debt by debt. The minimum on card A read over twenty-one years, beside the first minimum held level. Choosing the method, with its price. The payoff calendar, month by month for thirty months. The monthly budget that has to produce the surplus, and a thirty-day spending log. The starter emergency fund priced, and the procedure for the day the emergency arrives. One debt of your own with five extra amounts. The questions before signing any debt offer. And the debt-free date under every plan in the pack, with the levers that move it. The book’s case is filled in; a column is left for yours.
A workbook that marks itself. Answer in the yellow cells; the marking fills in as you go.
All of the workbook
Forty questions on the book
Seven on the trap of the minimum payment, six on minimums only, eight on the two methods, seven on the emergency fund, six on one debt of your own, and six on the three cases below. Numbers are marked to a tolerance, multiple choice to the letter, and the score sheet counts your errors part by part: that is your revision list.
Nothing is hidden. The marking sheet holds every answer, every tolerance, and the reason for each answer.
New material, not a restatement. Three situations the chapter names and never takes to a number. Each case is one workbook: the note is the first sheet, the model is the rest, and a checks sheet closes it. Type your own figures in and every finding recomputes.
Chapter 7 · Case one
The minimum that falls
Card A on minimums takes 258 months and 7,469.24 of interest: 3.33 times the 3,200 borrowed. Pay the first minimum, 81.53, every month instead and it clears in 74 months with 2,762.32 of interest. On all five debts, with no surplus at all, holding the first month’s 413.35 level clears them in 45 months, not 258, and saves 6,508.80. It costs nothing in month one.
Chapter 7 · Case two
The snowball that rolls
The workbook adds a fixed 250 to whatever the minimums are, so the monthly payment drifts down as debts clear: by month 18 it is 550.00, not 663.35. Hold it at 663.35 and both methods clear in 24 months. The snowball then costs 125.52 and no month, not 223.87 and one, and the snowball held beats the avalanche with the surplus fixed by 90.89 and six months.
Chapter 7 · Case three
The consolidation offer
One loan for the store card and both credit cards (ADDED: 12.9 per cent, a 4 per cent fee, 60 months) lowers the payment on them from 138.35 to 125.84. Paid at that lower payment it takes 60 months and costs 1,433.45 more than the workbook’s plan. Paid at the same 663.35 as before, it saves 127.46. It stops saving at a loan rate of 15.57 per cent, seven points below the cards it replaces.
twenty-six controls, each stating its own verdict; in the blank set and the cases, each control states its own verdict and the file ends ALL OK
ADDED
a figure the book does not give, used in the cases and marked wherever it appears
Every figure is illustrative and meant to be replaced with yours. This is education, not advice;
debt situations differ enormously and some options depend entirely on where you live.
Opening the files
The workbooks open in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Numbers; the PDF
prints on A4 or US Letter. They use no macros and no add-ins, so nothing needs to be enabled or
trusted. If your spreadsheet asks to update links on opening, decline — there are none.
What changed, and when
24 Sep 2026
The workbook re-verified, 26 checks: every figure the book and this page state reproduces, and none was wrong. The minimums-only result and the six emergency-fund results, typed in until now, are computed month by month on two new sheets; the fund costs 347.51 with the emergency and 338.49 without, and the surplus saves 8,853.38 against minimums only, not 8,853.07. The tabs are in order. Added: a blank set, twelve working documents, forty questions that mark themselves, and three cases.
Articles on this book
9 of the calculations in this workbook, worked out in full.
All articles.
Should you pay off debt or invest? The calculation£200 a month against a 22.9% card is worth £22,100 after five years; invested at an illustrative 7% it is £14,319. Against a 4.5% mortgage it is close.
How do you calculate your credit utilization ratio?Divide card balances by credit limits: $3,200 on $10,000 is 32%, with one card at 70%. Paying $200 reaches 30%; closing an unused card pushes it to 45.7%.
0% finance or a cash discount: which is cheaper?Price the discount you give up as interest: passing on £1,000 off £12,000 to pay over 36 months at 0% is borrowing at 5.89% APR. Cash wins if your savings earn less.
The other books with companion files. The full list of titles is on the
author page.
How to Read a Commercial LeaseThe three refinements chapter 19 names and never performs, and the renewal rate below which the mark-to-market is worth nothing.
How to Read a Real Estate Loan AgreementThe cure ratio in closed form, the four-point window in which the cheap cure works, and the cure sized to the wrong threshold.
The CBAM Compliance HandbookWhat 2027 really costs, how big the buffer should be, and the term the surrender formula counts twice.
Private Markets PerformanceThirty-one of the thirty-three figures chapter 19 publishes reproduce exactly — and the two that do not are named rather than quietly adopted.
The Private Equity Fund Controller PlaybookThe book defines IRR, DPI, RVPI and TVPI, tells you to update them at the exit, and prints not one value. Computed: a 1.833× deal inside a fund at 0.892 TVPI.
The Private Credit InvestorThe two coverage ratios are not measured on the same thing: the erosion is 47.7 per cent, not the 28.7 the headline implies.
The Distressed Debt InvestorWhere the fulcrum security actually breaks, and what an 80-cent recovery is worth once composition and time are priced.
The Real Estate Debt InvestorThe margin against the return on capital, the floor priced, and what prepayment protection buys.
The Fund Finance ProfessionalChapter 8 builds the reported-to-eligible NAV bridge; chapter 9 computes every ratio without it. Two points at every state — and what a subscription line does to the IRR.
Office Real EstateA six per cent yield that returns 3.2 per cent once the re-letting cycle is paid for, and the headline-to-net-effective rent arithmetic.
Real Estate FinanceFour people look at one building and reach four numbers; the lender is whole only above 105,109,489, twelve per cent below today’s value rather than forty.
Retail Real EstateThe occupancy cost of every unit in a centre, the sixteen per cent of the rent roll no tenant can sustain, and the right-size-convert-or-hold decision priced.
Sale and LeasebackA €179.5 million transaction end to end, with rent cover measured on the entity that actually signs the lease.
Self-Storage Real EstateThe cohort engine behind a 590-unit store, and the rate increase on existing customers priced against the move-outs it causes.
Financial Risk ManagementA fund inside every limit that cannot meet a redemption — and the number that decides it is the one with no currency attached.
Business ValuationThree advisers land 26.8 per cent apart on one company, and the whole gap turns out to be 1.96 points of perpetual growth.
Quantitative FinanceThree models agree to a quarter of one per cent about a number that one unobservable input moves a hundred and three times as much.
Asset ManagementFour people quote four returns for one mandate, all correct and 2.7017 points apart — forty-eight times the manager’s net skill.
Alternative InvestmentsA manager reports 13.29 per cent and the endowment earns 6.26 — both correct, and only a third of the advertised advantage arrives.
Credit AnalysisFour defensible EBITDAs on one borrower give leverage from 3.19x to 6.47x — and the add-back argument is fifty times the covenant headroom.
Venture CapitalOne company out of twenty-eight returns 56.7 per cent of the fund, and half the capital goes in after the decision — at half the return.
Machine Learning for FinanceFive people quote the accuracy of one credit model, all five are right, and the number that decides how much money it makes is none of them.
Commercial Real Estate InvestingThe equity earned 8.6647 per cent and the investor received exactly 8.0000 — the preferred return, and nothing above it.
Mergers and AcquisitionsThe board paper says the deal creates 13,436,667 of value. The arithmetic says it destroys 17,530,855. Nobody is lying.
DerivativesThe treasury report says the hedge cost 1,233,698. That is the interest differential, not a cost.
Treasury ManagementFive cash balances for one company, all correct and 145,600,000 apart — and the revolver that is two-thirds of the liquidity leaves at a revenue fall of 8.4127 per cent.
Financial Planning and AnalysisRevenue 3.0190 per cent above budget and operating profit 16.3209 per cent below it, in the same quarter, with every figure correctly stated.
Energy TradingA position report that is 91.7031 per cent hedged and correctly computed, on a book that is short 2,542,000 MWh — and a margin call of 198,400,000 the next morning.
Construction Cost ControlA contract sum of 26,301,102 became a final account of 29,153,363 on the building that was drawn — and 85.8 per cent of what was lost was knowable on the day it was signed.
Trade FinanceSix routes to payment on one 4,200,000 export order cost between 178,040 and 223,268, a spread worth 14.8 per cent of the margin, and a day of buyer credit costs 1,031.76.
Cost AccountingOne factory costed twice on the same 13,440,000 of overhead, and 4,053,091 moves between four product families.
Pricing StrategyA list price of 148.00, a pocket price of 112.51, and the nine deductions in between — with what one point of price is actually worth.
Contract ManagementA bid 5.50 a unit cheaper, signed on paper worth 9.81 a unit more — and 94.68 per cent of it was knowable on the day of signature.
Capital MarketsFour defensible readings of one bond, the cost of an issue under each convention, and the placement discount computed at a constant discount.
Financial RegulationThree ratios pass and the fourth is in breach by 1,956.0 million: the output floor, the liquidity buffer after encumbrance, and the loan split.
Bank ManagementFour defensible readings of one balance sheet, the deposit beta measured two ways, and the liquidity that lasts 3.9 days.
The Real Estate WorkoutFour ways out of one broken loan, discounted to today, and the 58.7 cents at which a payoff beats enforcement.
Go beyond the companion files
Personal Finance for Beginners develops the complete framework behind these models, with the assumptions, trade-offs and worked examples tied together.
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