Remember when everyone was telling us that home computers would change the world because we’d all find practical things to do with them that would change our lives for the better?

Sort of funny, huh? Those PC evangelists of the late 80s obviously didn’t count on “adult images”, World of Warcraft, Second Life, Twitter, MySpace, or videos of dancing hamsters.

Occasionally, however, you really can use your computer to do something valuable and serious.

A loan amortization table may not be as funny as trying to figure out what happened to Ellen Fleiss, but it can actually provide you with some actionable data.

If you want to make a loan amortization table in Excel, you’ll need only a few things.

1. Excel
2. A little time
3. A good set of instruction

If you’re looking for a shortcut, you can download a loan amortization calculator template for Excel free of charge.

You can get one here. Or here. There are several other versions of the template floating around out there. If you want to make a loan amortization table in Excel, just click the link and download the file.

That being said, many people who are interested in playing with their loan numbers aren’t going to do that. As Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist notes, there are reasons why people won’t use the freely available amortization calculators on the web, and those reasons probably apply just as well to creating a table in Excel:

1. You can customize your table to suit your needs. See what is your current loan balance. You could even enter in some home appreciation assumptions to see how your equity builds up. This would be important if you are trying to see when you can get rid of PMI payments.
2. Like everything else in life, some people are DIY’ers. For me in particular, I like having amortization tables for all my loans, so I can see where I am each month. It gives me a sense of control, whether it’s a false sense or not.
3. It’s easy! Trust me.

While Frank does provide a tutorial to help you in your quest to make that Excel table (and provides some good analysis about why you’d want one in the first place and what you could do with it), I believe in getting my instructions directly from the horse’s mouth. That’s true even when the horse in question wears glasses and goes by the name of Bill Gates.

Excel is a Microsoft product, so why not start by getting instructions straight from Microsoft? Despite the fact that MS can annoy in a million and one ways, it does offer some pretty decent online documentation for this particular task. It’s a pretty straightforward ten-step process. I know, ten steps seems a little heavy. Don’t worry, some of them barely qualify as “steps” on their own.

Oh, and if you have Microsoft grudges and would prefer to use Open Office to create and use your amortization schedule, the info is still solid. It works with the open source option.

Personally, though, I’ve found that the best tutorial covering how to make a loan amortization table in Excel is probably the one at TVMCalcs. This site, related to the time value of money and financial calculator tutorials, provides a nice illustrated post that will march you right through the process of creating an amortization table.

Joseph Rubin’s Excel tip site provides some extra instruction for those who want to really play with the numbers. If you want to make grace periods and random payments part of your evaluations, you’ll want to look into Rubin’s tips.

There you have it. You can use your computer for something productive today!