I'm getting to that stage where all sorts of things are coming into focus about my poker.   One of them is to finally get serious about tracking my performance.  However being a cheap donkey, I'm not ready to shell out bucks for a really nice poker database program, tho Poker Tracker looks nice at about $50.

I have seen mention in my web wanderings of folks using a spreadsheet to track their progress, return on investment, and such.  Does any one know of a freeware poker tracker set up on a spreadsheet, or instructions on how to do it? Or is this kind of endeavor really not warranted unless I want to learn all sorts of spreadsheet details first?

I use a spreadsheet program and keep the tally's myself. It's just regular math 

Stop Googling for "POKER" related and just look for ROI spreadsheet. There are bunchs and bunchs. I'm sure you will find one you can adapt.

And you also don't have to go buy a spreadsheet program as there are several free alternatives. If you have a Gmail account you have an online spreadsheet compliments of Google. And also from Google applications a free StarOffice suite (Sun). Its built on the OpenOffice platform, which is another free alternative. OpenOffice available here

And for those of you that already have Microsoft Office (I jumped off that bandwagon when moving from Windows 95 to XP required purchase of a new Microsoft Office) the ROI Googling applies to you too