When I got my job and an apartment, I knew it was time for
me to figure out how to budget. There
are lots of printable worksheets available online, but most of them weren’t
quite right for me. I needed something
easily changeable, and since I don’t have expenses like car insurance, there
are many categories on typical budget worksheets that I just don’t need. Excel is easy to use and does the math for
you! One thing I really love about this
system is that as soon as I add an expense or paycheck, Excel automatically
updates the new total without any hassle.
Here’s what I did:
- Open
an Excel spreadsheet. Label each
category as follows:
- Date
- Credit
- Debit
- Total
- Notes
- The
first entry is “Beg Bal,” meaning the beginning balance of all your checking accounts only. I also put the same value into the
“Total” field for easier math purposes.
- NOTE:
I copied the format of my actual budget and changed all of the numbers
(expenses and paychecks), because I’m not comfortable displaying
information about my real finances on the internet.
- In
each category, put the date, a value into either credit (money coming in,
i.e. paycheck) or debit (a purchase), and a notation of what the
transaction was. I’ll get to the
“total” part next :-) If the
transaction was taking money out, make sure to put a minus sign
before the value to make sure the total gets calculated correctly!
- For
the “Total,” type =D3+B3+C3 into cell D4. This adds the
beginning balance and the credit or debit amount and spits out the new
total balance!
(“PP10” means “Pay Period 10,” FYI)
- I
estimate my future expenses and income based on current and past values,
but as soon as I can use the actual value, I put it in so I don’t lose
track of how much I’ve actually
spent.
- And
that’s it! When I’m estimating
expenses, I sometimes add an extra $5-10 onto the cost I think it will be, so I have a
little wiggle room and won’t overdraft my account! Likewise, I enter roughly $10-20 less than I expect for income, so
that if more tax gets taken out than I anticipate, I’m not surprised. If I get more than I had originally
thought, it’s like a little gift!
Here’s a screenshot of my budget in its early stages :-)
*The only problem I have with this system is that it doesn’t
tell me which accounts have the money I need.
I just have to check my balances to make sure the money gets taken out
of the correct account(s). More on my
money transferring system is coming in another post!*
While not on this particular budget snapshot, I also have
money going towards my savings, which I count as an “expense,” because I won’t
be using that money to buy anything. I
have money transferred out of my checking into my savings on an automated
system every time I get paid, so I don’t have to think about it :-)
