Budget: Calc or Base?

[rowanfae]

The History:
I use spreadsheet budgets to keep track of my expenses, my income, where my money is going, etc. Or at least, that's my goal. I tend to use a budget for a few months, and then stop … for reasons. But right now, I really need to be using a budget, for reasons, and the one that I've been adjusting and perfecting for the past few years (a few months at a time) just isn't going to cut it.

The Spreadsheet:
I'm attaching the basic spreadsheet, the one I open, then 'save as' This Month's Budget; so it's blank of numerical information, but it has the formulae. If having numerical information would make more sense, then please let me know. Basically:
Assets: pretty much what it sounds like. Income, tips, account balances, and the recently-added debit purchases, so that I can balance my checking account
Tips: includes DMR (which is my miles reimbursement, because I'm a food delivery driver), tips, tips per hour, and then, because I was curious, a simple formula for calculating my miles per gallon, which doesn't actually need to be in this budget sheet
Expenses: categorized expenses, so I can see at a glance how much I spent on groceries this month, etc
Details: detailed information about date, vendor, what I actually purchased, and if it was credit or cash

So I've been trying to figure out how to make the perfect spreadsheet budget (more on what I need below), and after doing a lot of reading, on the forums here, and on the internet, I have basically one question:

Is this possible on Calc, or should I be using Base?

To be clear, I don't mind switching to Base. It's just that I've never used it (or anything like it) before, and so there's going to be a learning curve. I don't mind that, except that if I can do what I want with Calc, I'd prefer to. Or at least a reasonable facsimile, until I figure out how to use Base.

What I need in a budget (aka, can I do this with Calc?):
I want to input my purchases and transfers and whatnot one time (currently, I'm entering most things three times), and have at least two tables (or reports) that take information from that one list. Basically, I want to enter everything in the Details sheet, and have the Expenses sheet and the account balance list automatically farm the necessary information.
I want to never have to touch the Expenses sheet. I want everything with the Expenses sheet to be automatic.
I want to input my starting balance, income (paychecks) and tips (along with DMR) and purchases (and transfers and bank fees), and have my budget spit out current balances (both checking account and cash).
(I'd also like to add more functionality to the Tips sheet, by adding in my $/hr income as well, and thus attempting to estimate my entire wages per hour, as well as what my next check is likely to be.)
I'm mostly saying the same thing multiple times, I realize that. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I probably do need to use Base, but I'm still posting this in the hopes that I'm wrong, that there's some magical function that Calc has that I haven't come across yet that will organize my purchases according to cash vs credit and Expenses categories.

Thanks in advance for your time. I tried to make what I was asking as clear as possible, but if I failed in that, let me know.

[jackrcook]

This should be relatively easy to do using CALC. Especially is you don't want to learn BASE.

I would make column A = Date
I would make column B = amount
I would make column C = a code letter for what the entry is
F = food
E = entertainment
C = Car payment, gas etc.
U = Utilities, Elec, Gas, Water, Trash pick-up etc., Phone.
X = and so forth.
Then, every so often, you can do a DATA SORT to put all of a given Code letter items together.
Or, you could sort on the Amount and see the big items. Etc.
You could use multiple SHEETS to separate the months if you like. CALC is the way to go.

[Villeroy]

If you were very, very experienced with spreadsheets you would simply use it and aks more detailed questions. So yes, it is possible to mis-use spreadsheets as poor man's database. This has been done tried billions of times and you will have a very hard time to find anything that will actually work for you.
All professional solutions use some kind of databases because this is the category of software which is made for the job. This is what every computer user can handle easily without knowing that (s)he is using a database.
Since you are not a database developer, you should simply use some existing budgeting software. It will be a database application.