![]() The flexibility comes at the price of possibly deleting or messing up an important formula, or making bad assumptions. In my opinion, the #1 problem associated with using a spreadsheet for your personal budget is the chance that you'll make errors. it's just a disclosure to say that I don't ONLY use Excel any more.Ī spreadsheet may not be the best budgeting solution for everybody. I started out using Excel to do everything, but I began using Quicken after a friend showed me how easy it was to keep track of checks and credit card charges and download transactions directly from my bank. A budget is almost useless without tracking what you are spending. For expense tracking, you could use my Income and Expense Worksheet, Checkbook Register, or the newer Money Manager. Tracking your income and spending comes both before and after making a budget. For example, I like to use cell comments to explain certain budgeted items in more detail (such as the fact that in May, there is Mother's Day and a couple of birthdays to remember).Ĭreating a simple personal budget (even if it is only on paper) is one of the first steps to gaining control of your spending habits. The reason I use Excel when working with my home and business budgets is that it gives me complete flexibility to keep track of the information the way I want to. If you don't own Excel, then Google Sheets and OpenOffice are free options to consider. Microsoft Excel isn't free, but if you already own Excel, then you can create a budget without purchasing other budgeting software. Home Budget Worksheet - Our original selection of home budget worksheets.42 Effective Ways to Save Money Budgeting Tips for the New Year Why Use Excel for your Personal Budget?įirst reason: it's free.Personal Budget Spreadsheet The 12-month version of the personal budget version.Personal Monthly Budget - Like the one above, but less detailed, and designed to fit on a single page.Family Budget Planner - This is the 12-month version of the household budget spreadsheet listed above.Money Management Template - Record transactions to automatically populate the budget vs.If you add or remove any categories, just make sure that the formulas used for the totals don't get messed up. If your Net is negative, that means you have overspent your monthly budget.Īdding or Removing categories: The household budget template contains a very detailed list of categories, which you may or may not need. The Monthly Budget Summary table totals up all your income and expenses and calculates the Net as Income minus Expenses. If you spend more than you budgeted, the Difference between the Projected and Actual values will be negative, and if your Actual income is less than your Projected income, the Difference will be a negative number. In this spreadsheet, the calculations are set up so that negative numbers are bad. The cells in the "Difference" column use conditional formatting to make negative numbers red. ![]() At the end of the month, you record in the "Actual" column how much you really spent during the month. ![]() This represents your goal - you're trying to keep from spending more than this amount. You record your desired budget for each category in the "Budget" column. The purpose of this worksheet is to help you compare your monthly budget with your actual income and expenses. You may also want to read the article " How to Budget". Our article " How to Make a Budget" explains how to use these spreadsheets to create your budget. You'll want to replace the values in the Home Expenses category with your own. To use this template, fill in the cells highlighted with a light-blue background (the "Budget" and "Actual" columns). 42 Effective Ways to Save Money Budgeting Tips for the New Year Using the Household Budget Worksheet ![]()
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