Your budget spreadsheet may be in good shape. That snapshot could help you make decisions about things like saving or paying off debt. When you’ve plugged in your numbers, you’ll generally get a snapshot of your financial picture. Here’s where the financial information you’ve already gathered will come in handy. Once you’ve decided on a template and built your spreadsheet, it’s time to plug in your income and expenses. Seeing your average expenses each month could help you plan for the future or spot when you’re going over your budget each month. Then underneath those categories, you could create subcategories to list your types of income and expenses in detail.īy using the program’s subtraction function to deduct expenses from income, you’re able to get a quick look that compares how much money you have coming in to how much you have going out. Ready to set up your budget spreadsheet? You can generally make it as simple or detailed as you want.Īt a minimum, you might want to create one category for your total income and another for your total expenses. Still others might maintain an annual budget. How often do you want to manage your budget spreadsheet? That may largely depend on your financial situation.įor some people, a daily or weekly budget may work best. Utilities like power, phone and internet.Food including groceries and restaurant meals.Variable expenses may change from month to month and can include: Memberships such as gym and streaming TV services.Loan payments, including those for student and personal loans.Transportation such as bus and rideshare services.Rent, mortgage and homeowner association fees.A bill calendar could help keep track of those.Įxpenses on your spreadsheet can be broken down even further into fixed expenses and variable expenses.įixed expenses remain generally consistent each month but can have small fluctuations depending on usage. Those can include your monthly expenses, plus your bills that aren’t due on a monthly schedule, like annual personal property tax. They can also be broken into subcategories. Interest, dividends or capital gains on investments.Profits from selling goods or providing services.These would be based on different types of income, such as: It may help to break your net income into subcategories. That’s the total money you’ve earned minus expenses like taxes and interest payments. To get started, first determine your net income. Income is typically one of the major categories found in budget spreadsheets. Or research budgeting apps that do most of the work for you. You could also reference helpful worksheets from places like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). If building your own budget spreadsheet sounds intimidating, each program offers prebuilt templates to help you get started. Depending on your preference-and your computer-you might find an option that works from Google, Microsoft or Apple. The best budget spreadsheet for you is probably the one you’re most comfortable using. Next, you can start creating a budget worksheet by following these 7 steps: 1. That way, you’ll have most of what you need at your fingertips. I hope that makes sense! Let me know if you have any other questions.Before you start, it may help to gather financial information like pay stubs, bills, receipts, bank statements and credit card statements. By the end of the year, if I still have money in that column, I’ll donate extra to our missionaries, or send money to a charity I’d love to support year-round, but am not able to all the time. With the tithing, we give 10% as well, and I do very similar to the variable expenses where I set aside an amount I know will cover some of our higher earning months. Then when the lower bills come, you’ll have more than enough to cover them, but keep that same amount going in your budget column each month, and let it grow so it can cover a higher than usual month. Grab a snack, a calculator, your Income Tracker, and all your monthly bills, then settle in every 3 months…usually when the seasons change, because so does my utility usage! Another idea is to treat it like variable income, and set aside one of your larger bill payment amounts as a monthly budget. Now that you have a handle on tracking your expenses, we can dive right into the fun stuff – creating our very first budget! Own this part, because what you work on today will be the turning point to managing your entire finances. You can also check out this post for more than 60 tips that teach you how to manage money better. To read all posts in order, start with Why You Need a Budget, then continue reading the rest of the series on this page. This is the fourth post in the Creative Savings’ Beginners Guide to Budgeting Series.
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