How to Fill Out a Budget Planning Sheet

Introduction

A budget planning sheet helps track expenses and manage finances month after month. You can write your expenses manually, but a spreadsheet can make it easier to display expenses in one place and track your bills. If you don’t know how to create a budget spreadsheet, this guide will walk you through it step by step, with a downloadable template to help you get started.

Creating a Budget Planning Sheet

1. Open a New Spreadsheet

The first thing you will need to do is create a new file for your budget planning sheet. You can do this by opening a new workbook in your spreadsheet program. Give your budget planning sheet a name. Something simple like “Monthly Budget” works well.

2. Decide on the Organization of Your Budget Planning Sheet

Decide on an organizing strategy that works best for how you want to manage your budget. For example, you can track your expenses for each month on one spreadsheet page or create new tabs for each month if you prefer them to be separate.

3. Track Your Income Sources

Go to column A and enter “Income” in row two. Under “Income”, enter labels for each of your income sources each month in a separate row. This may include:

• Your regular salaries
• Investment income
• Business income
• Side job income
• Child support or alimony payments you receive
• Disability or other government benefits

At the bottom of the income list, enter “Total Income” in the instant plan below it. Now you can create a simple formula to automatically add your income as you enter it into the cells.

4. Enter Your Expenses

In column A, about one or two cells below your “Total Income”, write “Expected Expenses”. Below, enter a label for each category of expenses you want to include. Use your bank statement or credit card statement or any other record of your transactions from the last month to find everything you typically spend in a month. This may include:

• Rent/mortgage payments
• Utility bills
• Internet and cellphone services
• Health insurance
• Groceries
• Personal care
• Car insurance and fuel
• Subscription services
• Dining out
• Clothing
• Pet care
• Child care and after-school activities
• Entertainment and leisure

Once you have listed each category of expenses, finish the column A list by adding “Total Expenses”. Now create the same formula for total expenses as you did for income, and repeat it across the 12 months in your spreadsheet. When you enter values for the previous month’s expenses, you will be able to see how much you spent in each category and in total.

5. Compare Your Income and Expenses

Soon you will have finished creating your budget planning sheet. There is just one last step.

Add a new label in an empty cell below “Total Expenses”. You can call it something like “Difference”, which means the difference between your monthly income and expenses.

Click on the empty cell to the right of this label. Then, click the auto-sum button and click on the first number you want to include in your formula, which is the number in the cell that shows your “Total Income.” Then, click the minus sign or hyphen on your keyboard. Now, hold down the control key while you click on the number in your “Total Expenses” cell. Release those keys and click the enter key to automatically subtract your expenses from your income.

You will need to copy the Autosum formulas for income and expenses in each column to add or subtract the totals for the month.

Conclusion

It can take some getting used to using a spreadsheet to create a budget if you’ve previously done it in any other way.

To sort
Expenses in more detail to identify the biggest waste of money, create a separate budget sheet to track daily expenses, which are aggregated into larger budget categories.

Remember to update the income and expense categories if you need to add new categories or remove categories that no longer fit your spending. Finally, create an end-of-year summary so you have something you can use as a guide when planning your budget for the new year.

Source: https://www.thebalancemoney.com/how-to-fill-out-a-budget-planner-sheet-4777126

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