Although spreadsheets are incredibly simple to use, the complexity comes in the planning and creation of a spreadsheet that does exactly what you need. Once you have the requirements, and know how you want it to work, you will find that implementing the spreadsheet is the easy part.

OT: I have used spreadsheets for years (decades?) but I have yet to know how to create a Pivot Table. I haven't bothered to learn, mainly because I can't find anyone who can explain the basic concept of a pivot table to me. I wouldn't mind if you guys give it a try.

Exactly what is a pivot table, and why would I need to create/use one?

I had to learn Excel on my own a few months ago. I got the Dummies book, and found that it was exactly what I needed.

With a simple table of data (columns and rows) a pivot table provides grouping/sorting/filtering, and basic data aggregation functions.

The result is a interactive click/draggable table, where items can be moved around, hierarchies of aggregation changed, rows/columns transposed, and the like. I think that's where the word "pivot" comes from.

Not to belabor the point, but it really is just that simple. For example to create a budget:

House 100
Car 1000
Food 300

Total 1400

The four words are text typed into cells A1, A2, A3, and A5. The four numbers are just numbers typed into cells B1, B2, and B3. The blank cells between the items and total are just blank cells A4 and A5. The 1400 was produced by entering =sum(b1:b3) into cell B5. That is all there is to it. I teach people to due complex things for a living. Everything broken down is just that simple, if and only if you can grasp the basic concept.

Perhaps one of the most important points for the OP is how he/she learns best. Visual learner? Maybe a book. Visual and auditory learner? Books won't work as well but an online course will . Learn better by yourself or in a group setting? My daughter taught herself medieval german just by reading. I can't do that. I need to have my hands on something, doing it, in order to learn best.

When I posted the original question, I though Excel was used for adding up columns. Then, some of the responses got more and more complex. Today, I found out what all this knowledge is actually used for:

From the New York Post:

Banker rates dates in a spreadsheet -- then shares the file with one of them

and some commentary:

Real men can close the deal without opening Excel

Seriously, thank you for all the advice. Any suggestions of more online and DVD courses will be appreciated.

Well, I think you've left out the part where you enter stuff by month. And total it by year and quarter. And compare it to budget amounts. And graph the trends. And make a printed version come out looking halfway decent. And highlight areas where you're under or over budget. And rank your top 10 budget issues.

If budgets were just the four "simple" things you show above, everyone would be doing a budget in Excel.

Your original post did not tell us your level of experience and the type of Excel user you currently are or will be. You asked for suggestions to learn Excel but you did not specify not to include books (you only asked not to reference Microsoft's Getting Started). Without knowing your level of experience, Bobster's advise is not wrong or inappropriate.

1000 for car?
What do you drive?

Don't know anything about this companies quality but my Amazon local has Excel online training for $35. Might be worth looking into.

http://local.amazon.com/atlanta-northeast/B007W4EW3S

My reply is only regarding pivot tables/charts and not useful for the normal users of Excel spreadsheets. Simple reply would be that a pivot table is a way to report on raw data in a summary fashion that meets your needs.

I guess I am like many of you and have advanced from beginning, intermediate, to advanced. I have created more pivot tables than I care to count. The use has been for presentation reporting purposes. A typical pivot table spreadsheet would have number of different parts. Today these parts have been replaced by the numerous reporting tools out there, especially in large organizations. Pivot charts are also possible using the same methods.

1) Get data. This would be a read against a database ( Access, Oracle, MySql, etc). The output would be placed in tab labeled "data" and might be 10-100 fields wide and 1000-40,000+ rows. This tab is generally the last tab of the spreadsheet and can be hidden. Database extracts within Excel can be easy/not possible depending on your security access and sql knowledge.

2) Macro. The get data function is generally activated by a macro button on the first tab of the spreadsheet. You can also create macros for other purposes such as menu, formatting fields, creating extracts, etc. Creating macros are generally easy if you use the Excel macro recording functions.

3) Pivot tables. Generally pivot tables enable the user of the spreadsheet to slice/dice/filter the data. Each table uses the same data to create presentation reports that have different page, column and row variables that you want to report on. There are data variables which may be sum, min, max, calculations from other fields. I generally had 10+ pivot tables in single spreadsheet, each on a different tab. They automatically refreshed every time the "data tab" was refreshed. The users of these spreadsheets, generally management, would then use them to spot trends ( positive/negative) and filter data by region, acquisition method, etc, etc. It would be the basis of "what if" analysis. Additional variables not part of the data tab can be incorporated such as cost of goods, retention rates, etc.

Sorry for the long response.

I agree with all of you. It can be learnt by doing it. Simple things like designing a grade sheet that calculates class average for each test and weighted average over all tests for each student can be done after spending a few minutes to half an hour of self teaching. But then I learnt various versions of FORTRAN, TeX, BASIC, Pascal (Visual) and C, and some unix when I needed it, without ever taking a course. The problem I faced with learning excel is that it's designed for people who don't know conventional coding, and have little facility in mathematics. Some of the terms are not intuitive at all.
I used to be terrified of computer languages, because a bad introduction to computer programming in which the teacher spent so much time on binary numbers and translating binary to decimal and back that it turned me off. Computer was supposed to make my work easier?
I entered graduate school with zero literacy in computer languages. I ended up taking a graduate level course in Structural Vibration in which the final exam was a project that required writing a FORTRAN programme. I was taking 4 graduate courses and was teaching four classes as a TA. I got hold of a FORTRAN77 book but just didn't have enough time during the last week that I decided to ask for an Incomplete. I told the professor, who was also the Chairman of the Deptt of Mechanical engineering that I just didn't have enough time to learn enough FORTRAN to complete the project and that I could work over Christmas break and get it done by the first week of January. He said as a matter of principle he does not give Incomplete and that he would calculate my grade with a zero for the programming part. He looked at my grades and my analysis and said don't bother. You already have an A even with a zero in the project.

I could not have finished my thesis without FORTRAN and TeX in the days when you hired a typist to type your thesis. Word processing was done by programmes such NROFF and TROFF or SCRIBE, modem speeds were 110 bps-1200 bps. I used Tex to write my thesis.

Anyone used TeX?

I agree with all of you. It can be learnt by doing it. Simple things like designing a grade sheet that calculates class average for each test and weighted average over all tests for each student can be done after spending a few minutes to half an hour of self teaching. But then I learnt various versions of FORTRAN, TeX, BASIC, Pascal (Visual) and C, and some unix when I needed it, without ever taking a course. The problem I faced with learning excel is that it's designed for people who don't know conventional coding, and have little facility in mathematics. Some of the terms are not intuitive at all.
I used to be terrified of computer languages, because a bad introduction to computer programming in which the teacher spent so much time on binary numbers and translating binary to decimal and back that it turned me off. Computer was supposed to make my work easier?
I entered graduate school with zero literacy in computer languages. I ended up taking a graduate level course in Structural Vibration in which the final exam was a project that required writing a FORTRAN programme. I was taking 4 graduate courses and was teaching four classes as a TA. I got hold of a FORTRAN77 book but just didn't have enough time during the last week that I decided to ask for an Incomplete. I told the professor, who was also the Chairman of the Deptt of Mechanical engineering that I just didn't have enough time to learn enough FORTRAN to complete the project and that I could work over Christmas break and get it done by the first week of January. He said as a matter of principle he does not give Incomplete and that he would calculate my grade with a zero for the programming part. He looked at my grades and my analysis and said don't bother. You already have an A even with a zero in the project.

I could not have finished my thesis without FORTRAN and TeX in the days when you hired a typist to type your thesis. Word processing was done by programmes such NROFF and TROFF or SCRIBE, modem speeds were 110 bps-1200 bps. I used Tex to write my thesis.

Anyone used TeX?

FORTRAN? TeX?

Ah, the old days.

I just now turned around and looked at the stack of punch cards and the IBM tape on the shelf behind me. They are just below the shelf with the 8" floppy disks and the 5.25" 160k floppy drive. The tape sits on a stand for an iPad.

FORTRAN is old, but not obsolete. Some legacy programmes and routines are still used in conjunction with modules and GUIs developped in C, C++, visual C, Visual Pascal etc.

TeX is is the standard used by scholarly journals published by scientific societies such as AMS, APS (American Mathematical Society. American Physical Society). IN Comparison with TeX Microsoft Word looks pathetically amateur.