#Personal budget excel template how to

#Personal budget excel template how to

You may learn how to use Excel better in the process. Input your costs and income, and any difference is calculated automatically.

If you use and customize any template for your personal budget, make sure you understand how it works and always double-check the formulas. This Excel template can help you track your monthly budget by income and expenses. 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. 42 Effective Ways to Save Money Budgeting Tips for the New Year Why Use Excel for your Personal Budget?įirst reason: it's free.