Thread: Coding help please: Simple budget calculator

Hi, I'm fluent in HTML, wordpress, website building, graphics...etc (all the simple stuff) but when it comes to more advanced coding I look for help.

What I need is for visitors to fill out some details on a simple form (edit: do I mean "table"?). In one column I'd like to create some rows for expense categories (rent, food, utilities...etc) in another column I'd like to include rows for non-essential expenses (entertainment, luxury foods...etc). My aim is for people to split their spending into two broad categories. I'll need a total at the bottom of each column (essential and non-essential) and then I want to add a multiplication factor to each column total. For example I'd like to multiply their essential expenses by a factor. I have a point I'd like to make regarding how much money people need to live comfortable lives (without letting too much out of the bag right now).

What language should I explore to make this happen? Is there a standard script I can use? can anyone point me to some useful resources that specifically deal with this type of script. I have time to work on learning but would rather play with variables and I can format it myself so it looks all "purrrdy".

Appreciate any help or guidance you may have.

PHP would handle this pretty easily and would be fairly simple for what you're wanting. If you wanna save some time, just find a simple PHP form script and modify it to add your fields and do the math.

Originally Posted by jgearheart

...find a simple PHP form script and modify it to add your fields and do the math

Thanks, can you be a little more specific? How do I add math to a simple form script? By simple form script I'm presuming you mean a form like a feedback or contact us type form?

Also, I want it to add up on the fly by pressing a "calculate" or "re-calculate" function without taking them off the page. I'd like for them to be able to play with it while staying on the page. I'd also (now that I think some more on it) like to make comments based on the factor of essential expenses versus income. For example, if they are living below their means by a certain factor I want to congratulate them and encourage further savings or increased income.

I could make a simple spreadsheet they could download I suppose but I want to keep them on the site if possible.

if you want to change values inside field there are two ways

1- modify the html elements using javascript "on the fly"
2- reload the page and either copy what was inside the cell or replace with the newly calculated values

both will yield the same result, the latter is easier to do but will generate much more page loads and php calls, the former will have everything done on the client-side.

Thanks.

I guess I may be looking for more of an "applet" than static code. I don't want people to have to refresh the page every time they add a new amount into a cell. I want them to enter into a cell and watch the effect it has on their "bottom line" like Excel I suppose. It would also be cool if they could save their work for later.

I'll see if I can find an example and post back here.

JavaScript can do that.

field.change or something like that. Just let the calculations run through on every change.

I had a a calculator on one of my sites. I think we found a code snippet from a php library. ( I don't code)
I hired a PHP wiz to crank it out, I think it cost me 30 bucks and took 2 days.

just have a code monkey look up something online. there are lots out there.

That sounds like something you'd want to do with Asynchronous Javascript and XML ("AJAX"). There's a quick tutorial here: AJAX Tutorial. JQuery is a very popular AJAX framework that can handle a lot of the "purdy" parts, and you can definitely do simple addition & multiplication in Javascript to calculate a budget.

Thanks Pat, Zendo and Walter.

A super duper special thanks to AndrewNC who stayed up until 5am tonight to create and perfect the code and mathematics in PHP. I wanted to pay him but he refused. An example of Fastlaners stopping to help others.

See what you've created MJ? Nice work.

Glad ya got it sorted out!

Thanks and you were right (by the way), PHP handled it just fine. All I need is to make it look purrrdy and it's ready for a page.

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Thanks! That's cool! I'd love to try it out. Do you know of any websites that use it?