Pop-Up Menus and Calculations

Question

Hi all,
In my budget spreadsheet I am designing, I want to be able to denote the type of food each line item is in my "food" category. For example, I want to use a pop-up menu to indicate that the McDonald's I spent $5.66 on two days ago is a "Fast Food" type. After that, I want another cell to automatically detect that I selected that line item as a "Fast Food" type and then add whatever I spent in that line ($5.66) to any other line items that I designated as "Fast Food" types. Likewise, I want another cell to represent the total sum's of all my "Restaurant" and "Grocery" type food line items as well.
Thoughts on how to do this?
Thanks,
Ryan

Answer 1

Hi Ryan,
I would suggest a separate table for your summary statistics. In the second table, use the SUMIF function to add up all the expenses in specified categories.
For example let's say your expense log is in a table called "Expenses", your expense type is in column B, and your amount spent per transaction is in column C. The formula in your summary table for adding up all your "Fast Food" expenses in your Expenses table would be: =SUMIF(Expenses :: B, “Fast Food”, Expenses :: C). It makes no difference whether your expense type is from a pop-up menu or typed in directly.
Use the Numbers 08 Help function for assistance with the SUMIF function.
Jerry