Personal Budget Spreadsheet

For those who have difficulty managing their budget, the fear of somehow overspending and incurring huge loans or overdraft penalties can become overwhelmingly intimidating. With such a vast array of expenses that the average person is forced to face, keeping track of them can often seem impossible. One way to dramatically improve one’s organization skills and help manage your budget effectively, however, is to take advantage of a personal budget spreadsheet.

What exactly is a personal budget spreadsheet and how is it used?

A personal budget spreadsheet is a spreadsheet that helps one manage their regular income and expenses. In most cases, the vast majority of spreadsheets are run using the program Microsoft Excel, which is the most popular spreadsheet software. For those who wish to save money and are not interested in purchasing Microsoft Excel, however, a high-quality free program called Oracle OpenOffice also has a spreadsheet software that can produce equal results as Microsoft Excel without costing anything.

When using a personal budget spreadsheet, the first step is to enter each aspect of one’s income. In many cases, one’s income is equal to the combination of a husband and wife’s paychecks. For those who are single, it is only their own paycheck. Additionally, however, other aspects of income may include interest or dividends on one’s stocks, payment from freelancing gigs, or other various sources.

After one’s income has been added up, next it is necessary to enter one’s expenses. Depending on how well organized you prefer to be, it is possible to use very broad categories for expenses such as “Rent”, “Food”, “Entertainment”, etc. Alternatively, those who wish to gain a more detailed grasp on their expenses may divide these broad categories into extremely specific topics such as breaking food down into “Fruits and Vegetables”, “Meats”, “Supplements”, or breaking down “Entertainment” into “Going Out to Dinner”, “Movies”, “Television”, etc. Needless to say, there is no right or wrong way to create a personal budget spreadsheet, and how one chooses to set it up is based solely on personal preferences.

After all of the income and expenses have been entered, the spreadsheet will use formulas to add up how much you are spending in each category, how much you are earning, and what exactly the difference is. This will tell you how much you can afford to put in savings each paycheck or how much you need to either increase your earnings or decrease your spending in order to achieve a certain goal.

In many cases, people are perfectly fine monitoring their budget on the monthly level, which provides a good overview of their annual spending. Some people may prefer to monitor on the bi-weekly level, however, if this is how frequently they receive their paycheck. Alternatively, monitoring on the weekly or even daily level is also acceptable.

What is an example of a high-quality, pre-made personal budget spreadsheet?

Although the personal budget spreadsheet you use should be created to fit the categories of your spending and the time frame in which you wish to monitor, sometimes it is easier to take a pre-made personal budget spreadsheet and modify that rather than creating a whole new one from scratch. For an example of a high-quality pre-made personal budget spreadsheet, the following works extremely well:

Personal Budget Spreadsheet