You should now have a complete list of your income and expenses, which we’ll use to fill in the spreadsheet in the creating your budget section. These spending patterns and behaviours can be called ‘spending leaks’ - we’re going to change your mindset to look at these instead as ‘opportunities to save’. It will also help you identify spending patterns and behaviours that could be better managed to save money. Look to have all fixed expenses debited out of a single account for better tracking.įollowing these tips will help you document all of your expenses for your budget spreadsheet.Analyse how much physical cash you withdraw and spend – try to not use cash ongoing.Analyse your credit card statement for spending patterns by categories.Here are some tips to accurately gather your existing expenses to document in your budget: Instead of trying to track these mini variable expenses, you might be better off stating ‘I have $50 per week for variable expenses’ and work towards sticking to this number. For instance, some days you may buy a coffee – other days you may not. Variable expenses are slightly harder to track and may require you to set yourself a daily or weekly budget limit to help cover these.Fixed (or recurring) expenses are easily tracked, as they are often a set amount on a regular date.There are also two types of expenses: Fixed and Variable. Listing your expenses quickly helps you establish whether you have enough money coming in to cover these. Your new expenses total $1,725 per month.You add a buffer of 15% which is calculated at $225.You estimate you spend $1,500 per month.When calculating your expenses, also factor in unexpected bills, such as unplanned car repairs.Ī good rule of thumb is to add an extra 10 per cent to 15 per cent. A forgotten bill really throws a wrench into your savings plan. Remember that being thorough when you add up expenses is important in creating a realistic budget. Some expenses are intermittent, such as insurance payments, so to get the most accurate financial picture you can calculate an average for six months to a year. Assess your expenses by consulting your bank statements, receipts, and financial files. Home Budget - Our original selection of home budget worksheets.This is how much money you spend.Family Budget Planner A yearly budget planner, with the same categories as the household budget spreadsheet.Household Budget Spreadsheet (monthly) - More detailed and includes child expenses.Personal Budget Spreadsheet The 12-month version of the above spreadsheet.Money Manger - A more advanced budget management tool for Excel.After making a change, you should check the formulas to make sure they are still correct. If your Net is negative, that means you have overspent your monthly budget.Īdding or Removing categories: You need to be careful when adding or removing categories, to avoid messing up the formulas used for calculating the totals. The Monthly Budget Summary table in the upper right of the worksheet totals up all your income and expenses and calculates your Net as Income minus Expenses. So, if you spend more than you budgeted for, the value in the Difference column will be red - to help it stand out as a warning. The spreadsheet uses the accounting format where negative numbers are in parenthesis like (115.00), and conditional formatting is used to make the negative numbers red - red means bad in this case. The calculations in the "Difference" column are set up so that negative numbers are bad. Using the Personal Monthly Budget Template See our articles Make a Budget and 5 Basic Budgeting Tips if you are just getting started or new to budgeting. At the end of the month, you record in the "Actual" column how much you really spent during the month.įor a more detailed set of budget categories, see the Household Budget worksheet. This represents your goal - you're trying to keep from spending more than this amount. You record your desired budget for each category in the "Budget" column. The purpose of this type of budget worksheet is to compare your monthly budget with your actual income and expenses. Some numbers are included in the Home Expenses category as an example, but you'll want to replace those numbers with your own. To use this template, just fill in numbers that are highlighted with a light-blue background (the Budget and Actual columns).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |