Free Sheets Budgeting Template
I’m not even being dramatic when I say I feel like budgeting has changed my life. I started budgeting shortly after getting my first big girl job when saving was my priority, and I felt like I was putting some money away in savings but really had no idea how much.
I feel like I’ve entirely hacked budgeting by making this spreadsheet, which is why I’m so eager to share it with you! Not only do I feel like it’s pretty easy to keep track over time, I’ve also created an expense analysis sheet that keeps track of my discretionary expense categories.
Personally, I give myself a blanket amount for discretionary expenses, I know some people budget exact amounts for those items, but I like to give myself a little freedom. That said, I do like to see how much I’m spending in total on things like coffee, fast food, beauty, and so on. So, using the SUMIF function, I’ve started keeping track of each of these categories for the whole year. I think this gives me immense insights, and makes me feel a little better about how much I’m actually spending on coffee throughout the year (it’s less than I thought).
My Budgeting Philosophy
I think the most common misunderstanding people have about budgeting is that budgeting is strictly for the cost-conscious. Having a good budget is the first step to actually getting a good handle on your finances. It’s not always easy, it takes practice, discipline, and determination, but I believe everyone can do it.
A budget is, in essence, telling your money where it’s supposed to go, and then following through on it. When you have a plan for your money, or even keep track of where your money is going, I firmly believe that you are far better off than you ever were not knowing. Even if you had been living within your means before, you will be far more well-equipped to set and achieve your financial goals.
Paying attention to your spending will help you rein in your spending in areas where you find it necessary to cut back or allow for more spending in other areas. You may feel like something is affordable, or you may feel like something is cheap, but a budget is what actually puts those expenses into perspective.
How to Use This Spreadsheet
So, this budget is broken out month by month for the whole year, because most of your fixed expenses are monthly, and some of us only get paid monthly. There’s a column for your fixed expenses and a column for your discretionary expenses, and the first column is for your monthly totals. Then, there’s another sheet that sums categories of your discretionary expenses, and your YTD savings.
The Totals Column
Working from the right over in this spreadsheet:
The first column is a summary of the fundamental budgeting numbers: income, fixed expenses, discretionary expenses, and the leftovers. Several of these cells are dependent on other figures in the table.
- The fixed expense and discretionary expense figures are pulled from the totaled sums in the columns to the right
- To plan your budget for the month, I suggest putting your projected pay in the paychecks fields, and replacing those figures with your actual paychecks as you get paid throughout the month. This will help you anticipate how much you will have left over and how much to budget for discretionary expenses.
- The spreadsheet does the math for you, to sum your fixed and discretionary expenses, and subtract those from your total pay to calculate what you have left over.
- If you have specific, sub savings goals, like contributing to your emergency savings, a home down payment, or travel savings, then you can have the spreadsheet do the math for you, breaking up your total savings for the month as desired. This is done by using the PRODUCT function, multiplying the total by the decimal form of the percentage you want to break it up by. For example, currently, the spreadsheet is defaulting to break it up 50/50, so the formula is product(b12,.5). But, if you wanted to break it up 60/40, you make one formula product(b12,.4) and one product(b12,.6). You can also decide to allocate left over to additional loan payments instead of savings if you desire, the choice is entirely up to you!
The Fixed Expense Column
In the next column to the right, you have your fixed expenses. I’ve prefilled several common fixed expenses, but you may want to add some other fixed expenses, like childcare, or phone payments. I suggest prefilling these as well and adding in what the actual expenses are as you get your bills later. Fixed expenses are expenses you know you will have, and tend to be around the same amount, but can vary some month to month. You will want to budget for these so you know what you have to work with for your discretionary expenses. There’s a formula summing these expenses at the top of this column, this figure is carried over to the column on the right.
The Discretionary Expense Column
In the next column, you have discretionary expenses. At the bottom of these expenses, you have a place to enter how much you’ve budgeted for discretionary expenses in the formula. This will help you stay on track as you spend throughout the month.
Throughout the month, enter each discretionary expense and its amount, and select which spend category it fits into in the drop-down to the right. The formula at the bottom of the table will tell you how much of your discretionary expense budget you have left. Now, I’m not great at math, so I also sum the discretionary expenses above them in that column as well. This sum carries over to the totals on the right.
How the Dropdowns Work
The reason why there’s a dropdown for both the discretionary expenses and the leftover is to keep track of your totals in the expense analysis sheet. I’m using the “SUMIF” function to total these expenses. The SUMIF function sums figures if the corresponding cells named in the formula meet the criteria named.
For example:
=SUMIF(Budget!H:H,”Coffee”,Budget!G:G)
This formula will only sum figures in the G column of the Budget sheet if values in the H column have the value “Coffee.” This is why there’s the dropdown, to ensure consistency for the SUMIF function. This way, you can keep track of your spending in each category. I find this table to be so enlightening throughout the year.
If you have more expense categories you want to add, sheets makes it pretty easy to add to the dropdown, by clicking on the pencil at the bottom of the list of dropdowns. To add to the table, copy the above formula and insert the value you’re adding to the dropdown to the formula.
The reason why you change the dropdown for savings is similar, to see what kind of progress you’re making towards your goals. Again, if you change the labels in the dropdowns, use the below formula and insert your desired label.
=SUMIF(Budget!B:B,”INSERT LABEL”,Budget!C:C)
This is legitimately the budget spreadsheet I use on a regular basis. Tracking every expense is definitely not for everyone, and I don’t even know if it’s something I’ll do for forever. That said, I definitely believe this is something that has improved my financial discipline immensely and helped me rein in my expenses. While these instructions may seem like a lot, when you actually spread this out over a month, and put this into practice this is a really easy way to budget.
Please, please, please customize this spreadsheet to your heart’s content. This has worked well for me, but you should use it as what it is – a template to get started on your budgeting journey.
More Sheets Tips
Use the view menu to see gridlines again, and to see all the formulas in the tables.
Use ctrl+f to find and replace certain values, if you don’t foresee yourself using certain labels, like “hygiene” or “insurance”
Use the =SUM function in the discretionary column if you frequent certain places for your discretionary expenses, like certain coffee shops or fast food places.
If you have a vacation or other expenses coming up that may not be in your monthly budget – personally I have a travel savings that I take that from – I use a separate sheet in my budget spreadsheet to track trip expenses.
Molly Sparkles 
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