I've used Excel for years. It seems to me there are word processor people, and there are spreadsheet people, and whichever one you are, you force your preferred mode to do everything.
This little book is really a reference, rather than a self-teaching course; it has all the steps for most processes you might want to do. It seems quixotic that I decided to read it cover to cover, but I was determined to figure out what Excel could do for me.
As a result, I have created a spreadsheet (and a pivot table, and some graphics) for the expense tracking I've been doing. I'll still tend to use Word tables for most of my spreadsheet needs, though, because I'm a word processor person.