Formula help needed for totals in an expense report

Hi Everyone


I have recently been using Excel to help me with budgeting and organization, and it has been going well for the most part. The only problem i have run into is creating a formula in a document i use to track my spending. In my spending report, I have the item type (ex. rent) in column A, and the $ amount in the adjacent cell in column B. I make a sheet for each month, and then do the total spending for each type, such as rent, as well as calculate the % of total spending each item is. currently, i have to manual add each item to a formula, because i am rusty on excel formula. I would like a formula that would find the monthly sum for each area of my spending.

I am lost with this formula. I have been brainstorming, and basically I need to known how to make the formula, (for range A2:B30, sum of cells, if cell value is 'Rent", value from adjacent cell to the right, 0)

I know the idea i have isn't written write, and probably isn't close to what i actually need, so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks, Chris.