By learning how to budget your money, you can maintain a good quality of life as you can use the money smartly and meet the basic living expenses without any trouble. Learning how to manage your finances properly gives you tons of benefits and the best way to do this is by creating a personal budget spreadsheet.
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Personal Budget Spreadsheets
What is a personal budget spreadsheet for?
When you have a personal budget spreadsheet, it becomes easier for you to organize your finances while managing the debts you may require for a more comfortable living. Budgets are generally used to plan monthly activities, expenses, and securing a financial future.
To many, managing their personal finances seem like a daunting undertaking, although it doesn’t need to be. Using a personal budget template, which you can readily download online, makes the job easier.
This tool contains all of the information you need in one convenient place. Just looking over this helps you personally see the income that you have and how much money you have spent. This allows you to budget your money more appropriately for your needs.
Personal Budget Templates
What is included in a personal budget?
A personal budget spreadsheet contains the details of your possible income sources as amounts received from various sources. The most common sources of income include the following:
- Business
- Dividends or Interest
- Miscellaneous
- Pension
- Wages or Salary
To achieve successful budgeting, you might want to include in your personal expenses template a savings goal that you set for every month. It should be something that you aim for.
You can perform an analysis each month to help you obtain an estimated image of the total savings target you aim to achieve plus the amounts that you can potentially set aside towards your savings. Additionally, a personal budget helps you make better decisions when it comes to your expenditures and savings. Sample expenditures can include:
- Daily Living
- Entertainment
- Financial Obligations
- Health
- Holidays
- Home
- Miscellaneous Payments
- Personal
- Recreation
- Subscriptions
- Transportation
Excel Budget Spreadsheets
How do I create a personal budget spreadsheet?
Having a personal budget spreadsheet helps you feel in control of your finances, allowing you to save money for your personal goals. When creating your own personal finances template, you should find a way to keep track of your finances to suit your objectives. Here are steps to consider when creating your template:
- Take note of your net income
This is the first step when creating your budget – to identify how much money you have coming in. Always remember that it’s very easy to overestimate what you can afford when you think that your entire salary as the amount you can spend.
Always take into consideration when creating your Excel budget spreadsheet to subtract deductions and other flexible spending allocations. Net Income refers to your final take-home pay and this is the value you must use when creating your budget.
If you have a hobby to sustain, find another way to add to your income. It is also helpful to have an extra income source, more especially so if you ever end up losing your job. - Monitor your spending
Monitoring your spending and categorizing these is very helpful when you need to make some adjustments. Doing this helps you pinpoint what you’re spending most of your money on and where it’s easy to cut back on.
You can also have a list of expenses that are always subjected to change from one month to the next like gas, entertainment, and even groceries. It is in these areas where you may find the best opportunities to cut back. - Set financial goals
Before going any further with the information you have gathered through tracking, you might want to make a list of your financial goals that you want to achieve in the long- and short- term. Short-term goals take no more than one year to accomplish.
Long-term goals like saving your child’s college funds or for retirement might take years to achieve. Keep in mind that goals shouldn’t really have to be that rigid but it can help if you can identify your priorities before starting to plan your budget. - Create a plan
The fixed and variable expenses that you have so far gathered will help you get a feeling of what you will spend for the next couple of months. Using your fixed expenses will help you foresee accurately and fairly how much money you have to budget for.
As for your variable expenses, you can use your spending habits as your guide in predicting them. If you need to, you can break your expenses down further between the things that you need to spend on and things that you simply want to purchase. - Adjust your spending habits as needed
Once you have all of the information, you now have everything you need to create your budget. The documentation on both your spending and income will give you a clearer picture of where you have extra money or where you can start cutting back so that you have the cash to put forward to your goals.
Finally, if the numbers are still not balancing, there might be a need for you to adjust your fixed expenses. But bear in mind that in doing so, it will be more difficult and you might need greater discipline. Making these decisions come with large trade-offs and as such, you should make sure to weigh your options carefully.
Here’s an additional helpful tip for you: the small savings when taken collectively will add up to a lot so don’t take these for granted. You’d be very surprised at the amount of extra funds you can accumulate by making one simple adjustment at a time. - Keep checking your budget
There is also be a need to go through your budget regularly just to make sure you are still on the right track. You can even compare your expenses each month with people who have the same lifestyle as you.
Remember that your budget can get subjected to changes. For instance, your expenses might increase, you might get a raise or you might have achieved your goal and you want to plan a new goal. Whatever reason, regularly check your budget to ensure that you’re always on track.
