Beginner Illustrations to try my hands on

Far and away, the best way to learn Excel is to put your mind to work on something of your own that lends itself to being managed, reported on (even to yourself) . An ideal starting application could be a spreadsheet to track your income and expenses. So you'd record each transaction (perhaps as it appears in a bank statement), apply a budget category (sub-category as well, if desired) to each line. After you've collected data for several months, look into using the Pivot Table tool to develop a summary report, cross-tabulated by budget category and month.

There are readily available templates for this, BUT I would advise against them. For learning purposes, you'll learn far more from working on it yourself, recognizing there'll be some trial and error as part of the process. Do NOT be afraid to make mistakes. You're not going to break anything. This is for learning purposes at present.

If you think to yourself "It really ought to be possible to do _____________" then take it for granted that it IS possible. Excel is marvelously equipped with a wide array of tools (generally called Functions). Your challenge will be to figure out what they've called or named the particular tool that does what you think you need. Generally the name of the Function is a clue to what it does. Learn to be patient while you look for it. Here's a good place to start that search, a list of 350 Excel functions, categorized into several useful sets. Become familiar with the categories, and then take some time to become aware at a basic level of what tasks are likely to be most useful in whatever application you are developing.

Have fun!