SUMIF will work but that mean you must make a list of categories
Pivot table would be ideal but will take you a few minutes to lean how to do
it

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/pivots.htm
http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Pivots/pivotstart.htm
http://www.contextures.com/xlPivot02.html
http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/excel-pivot-tables.htm
http://www.techonthenet.com/excel/pivottbls/index.htm
http://www.dicks-blog.com/archives/2...le-parameters/

best wishes

--
Bernard Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
http://people.stfx.ca/bliengme
"The Ambassador" <The wrote in message
...
I have all my expenses for 2009 listed in date order. I have assigned each
one an expense category using a drop-down based on the "data validation"
tool. Is there an easy way to tally up the total expenses for each
category?