By Liv
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Check out these free budget spreadsheets and start telling your money where it should go!
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Are you spreadsheet illiterate? Or worse….are you a spreadsheet fanatic? Do you pray at the altar of your budget or are you the type thatcan’t-keep-a-budget-to-save-your-life? Whichever way you rock it, you’ll find a budget spreadsheet (template) that works for you in the list below!
I fall into the category of “spreadsheet fanatic.” I loveeee me some spreadsheets (can you blame?…I’m an engineer!). If I’m in a situation that can be solved by creating a spreadsheet, my happiness level instantly doubles, probably triples if I’m telling the truth. I’ll find any excuse to create a spreadsheet.
This list below starts with the simplest, easiest spreadsheet that anybody can use. As the list goes on, the spreadsheets get more detailed, complicated, and are able to do more things.
1. Simple Budget (from Microsoft Corporation)
If you want to set the simplest budget possible (input income and set a value for spending for each budget category), then this your spreadsheet. All it does is add up all your income, add up your projected spending in each category, and calculate the difference of the two (which will tell you if you are making more than you spend, or vice-versa). This spreadsheet does not allow you to put in your expenses, so you can’t evaluate if you’ve stayed within your budget at the end of the month.
2.Personal Monthly Budget (from Microsoft Corporation)
Ugh, SSOOOOOO simple. And it prints on one page. Yes and yes. This spreadsheet is SOOOOO simple. It breaks your budget into several obvious categories (housing, transportation, loans, etc). At the beginning of the month you can enter the amount you project to spend. At the end of the month you can enter how much you actually spent. The spreadsheet will calculate the difference and also summarizes all the categories at the top and bottom. Best part, each monthly budget fits nicely onto ONE page, so it’s a clean and easily printable document. I love this. It does everythign you need. Perfect if you are just starting out. Perfect if you are looking for a printable document to put in your budget binder.
3. Budget Slasher (from Girls Just Wanna Have Funds)
This spreadsheet is set up just like a budget, but aims to help you slash your budget. It calculates how much your monthly savings will be if you follow your new, slashed budget. To get this spreadsheet, you have to go to the Girls Just Wanna Have Funds website, scroll down a little, click “Download Now” when you see the Budget Slasher spreadsheet, put in your name and email, and it’ll download the spreadsheet on your computer and open in Google Documents so you can download on your computer.
4. Monthly Budget Spreadsheet (from Money Under 30)
This first tab of the spreadsheet is your run-of-the-mill budget. It breaks your budget into categories, and you can input your budget for each category. But the part I really like about htis spreadsheet is that there are an additional 12 tabs, one for each month of the year. In each monthly tab, you can enter how much you spent in a budget category on a specific day….and then the spreadsheet will calculate how much of your variable expense budget you have left. The only thing that would make this better is if it told you how much money you have left in each category.
5. Simple Monthly Budget (from Zero Based Budget HQ)
This is super simple. It’s different from the other spreadsheets because you can input the percentage of your income you want to allocate for each category instead of inputting the exact amount you want to allocate. For instance, if you want to give 10% of your income to charity, you just write 10%, instead of having to calculate the amount like $230.
6.The Super Easy Budget Form (from Trees Full of Money)
This budget spreadsheet exploded on Pinterest….and for good reason. This spreadsheet is helpful if you have debt because it tells you the “extra money” you have (the money you haven’t budgeted) that could go towards paying off debt.
7.YNAB Style Spreadsheet(from a Redditor on Reddit.com)
As the name suggests, this spreadsheet’s layout and function is very similar to the paid budget software called YNAB (You Need a Budget). It’s perfect if you want to create a zero-based budget. The spreadsheet requiresyou to put in all of your transactions and categorize them. It’s a very visually appealing spreadsheet and it nicely summarizes each months’ available budget, income, and expenditures.
8.Updated Personal Finance Tracker (from a Redditor on Reddit.com)
This spreadsheethas the basics – a monthly budget (I like this because it has all 12 months in one tab, and it allows your budget to change from month to month) and a transactions log to record all your spending. But it also includes some extras – a savings balance sheetand a net worth tracker (and associated charts). This spreadsheet is great if you have some experience with excel, if your budget changes from month to month, and if you want a spreadsheet that has more than just a budgeting capability.
How do you keep track of your budget? Is it froma spreadsheet template like the ones above, using a digital program, or good old fashioned pen and paper?
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