UseExcel: Everyday uses for Excel

Ordering pizza online

I order pizza online now; it's convenient, especially if the pizza is delivered. After I place my order, before I get up and walk away from the computer, I open Excel and calculate what amount of tip I should give the delivery person, as well as the total amount I must bring to the door. Here's how I do it:

In cell A1, I enter the cost of the pizza, say 14.39. Say I want to give a 20% tip. In cell B1 I enter the formula: =A1*1.2 . The way I enter the formula is important:

1. I enter the = sign.
2. With the mouse, I select cell A1. That enters the cell address A1 to the right of the equals sign. So now the formula looks like =A1
3. The I finish the formula by adding the tip factor: =A1*1.2 and press the Enter key.

The resulting value is 17.268, so I know I have to bring $17.25 to the door when the pizza arrives.

Some customers prefer to charge the basic amount (the $14.39) to a credit card and leave a cash tip. This way the pizza company gets the $14.39, and the delivery person gets the tip amount. But how much is it? In a cell I can enter the formula =17.25-14.39 and press Enter to get $2.86. Or I can get fancier and enter the formula =A1*.2 and press Enter to get $2.88. (Remember cell A1 has the initial cost of the pizza $14.39. Rounding explains the difference between $2.86 and $2.88.

What happens when there is a pizza price war?

Recently, the pizza company that I order from has been offering pizzas for $11.11. This is great for me but not so great for the pizza delivery person who stands to get a smaller tip =11.11*1.2 e.g. $13.33 - $11.11 = $2.22 instead of $2.88 (calculated above).

So how do I figure out how much to give the pizza delivery person?

1. In cell A1 I enter the formula =11.11*1.25 to get a total of 13.88
2. Then in cell A2, I enter the cost of the pizza, without tip, 11.11.
3. Finally, in cell A3, I enter the difference between the toal amount and the cost of the pizza =A1-A2. Remember to select cell A1 with mouse to get the cell address for cell A1. Do the same for cell A2.

So in cell A3 I can see that the tip will be $2.77 which is close to the tip amount of $2.88 before the pizza war.

Converting from one measurement to another.

I was doing some vacation planning for next year. I was planning a trip to Canada which uses the metric system. The map told me that it was 39 kilometres from one town to another. Since I was planning for my American relatives, I need to convert the distance in kilometres to miles. The map gave me the conversion factor: 1.6. So in a cell I enter the formula =39/1.6 and pressed enter to get approximately 24 miles.

Comparing unit prices for a product that comes in various packages.

I usually buy canned cat food in cases of 24 cans. It costs $16.56. I want to be sure that this is way gives me the cheapest cost per can, or unit cost. I saw the same cat food in another store selling for 4 cans for $3.00. So in cell A1, I enter the formula =16.56/24 and press the Enter key to get 69 cents per can. In cell B1, I enter the formula =3/4 and press the Enter key to get 75 cents per can. Now I know that I should continue to buy cases of cat food.