I just found a cool Excel function!
Apr. 14th, 2026 01:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneWell, it's not a cool function, it's an option on a function. Specifically, the Weekday function.
I'm finishing up our taxes. Normally I'd finish them in February or March, but it's been a heck of a few months. One of the things that I do is dump all my prescription drug purchases into a spreadsheet and calculate the day of the week, so I can take a mileage deduction on my state taxes for weekend pickups since I'm not working those days.
Nevermind whether or not we're going to dinner or a movie....
Anyway, the function ends up being:
=IF(WEEKDAY(A1,2)>5,42,"")
A1 is my date field of when the transaction takes place. By default, i.e. without a number changing the day of the week for the date the starting DOW is Sunday = 1. By supplying the 2, you're telling Excel that Monday = 1, therefore if the DOW is greater than 5, it's Saturday or Sunday, therefore the weekend! If that's true, plug in 42 (round trip to Alamogordo and back), otherwise make it a blank cell.
Five trips for an additional 210 miles, at $0.21 per mile towards my state taxes! I have to manually eliminate dupes for multiple transactions on the same day, being multiple drugs refilled and picked up at the same time.
I use spreadsheets a fair amount, but not for anything particularly complex, just as a general purpose tool, so I was kinda chuffed to find this. The question is whether or not I'll remember it for next year!
I'm finishing up our taxes. Normally I'd finish them in February or March, but it's been a heck of a few months. One of the things that I do is dump all my prescription drug purchases into a spreadsheet and calculate the day of the week, so I can take a mileage deduction on my state taxes for weekend pickups since I'm not working those days.
Nevermind whether or not we're going to dinner or a movie....
Anyway, the function ends up being:
=IF(WEEKDAY(A1,2)>5,42,"")
A1 is my date field of when the transaction takes place. By default, i.e. without a number changing the day of the week for the date the starting DOW is Sunday = 1. By supplying the 2, you're telling Excel that Monday = 1, therefore if the DOW is greater than 5, it's Saturday or Sunday, therefore the weekend! If that's true, plug in 42 (round trip to Alamogordo and back), otherwise make it a blank cell.
Five trips for an additional 210 miles, at $0.21 per mile towards my state taxes! I have to manually eliminate dupes for multiple transactions on the same day, being multiple drugs refilled and picked up at the same time.
I use spreadsheets a fair amount, but not for anything particularly complex, just as a general purpose tool, so I was kinda chuffed to find this. The question is whether or not I'll remember it for next year!
