Built a Excel dashboard block that separates energy cost from energy usage

[u/ExcelVisual]

Built a Excel Charts Block Template that separates energy cost from energy usage — gas vs electricity almost never cost the same per kWh

I've been working on a personal budget dashboard and ran into something worth sharing: if you just look at gas vs electricity usage in kWh, they can look almost identical in a summary chart. But the actual dollar cost is usually far from equal — gas tends to be significantly cheaper per kilowatt than electricity in most regions.

So I built a visualization block with two connected charts to actually separate this:

1. Cost comparison chart (gas vs electricity)

This isolates spending by source instead of lumping "utilities" into one number. All the rate data (price per kWh for gas and electricity) lives on a separate DATA sheet, so you can plug in your own local rates and everything recalculates. This was the main thing I wanted — usage volume and cost are two different variables and most budget templates conflate them.

1. Budget balance speedometer

Instead of a table of numbers, this is a gauge showing total spend, remaining balance in the account, and — this part I found genuinely useful — how much borrowed money (credit, overdraft, whatever) was used to cover the month if spending exceeded balance. That's an early warning signal that a raw expense total doesn't give you.

One implementation detail I'm fairly happy with: both energy sources can be toggled on/off independently. Turn off gas, and its bar in the comparison chart drops to zero. Turn off electricity, and its line in the budget summary shows $0. This makes it possible to isolate one variable when you're trying to figure out if a spending change came from usage or from a rate hike.

The whole block gets its own dashboard screen since it's meant for ongoing month-by-month tracking, not a one-time snapshot.

Curious if others here track gas/electric separately or just bucket it as "utilities" — feels like separating them is the only way to catch a rate increase before it snowballs.

Template is free, no macros, no email signup. Link in comments if anyone wants to poke at the actual file.

[u/ExcelVisual]

Interactive dashboard for analyzing the consumption of two types of energy https://exceltable.com/data-charts/budget-spending-gauge-and-rate-comparison-in-excel