Free budget spreadsheet and expense tracker

(To download, go to the “free budget spreadsheet and expense tracker” file in Financial Tools page)

Last year a lot of people took a fresh look at their finances. And that meant starting with the basics of comparing income to expenses.

I have long been recommending such expense tracking. For four years I have made a free spreadsheet available. And it has helped over 5,000 people with the finances.

In this year’s version, I elected to add a small budgeting component. You can now write in monthly budget amounts for different categories, and these are compared against the year-to-date running average. This provides an idea of how your budget estimate compares to your actual spending. This gets more interesting the more time you track.

(Personally I don’t budget and I leave these entries blank. Instead I analyze actual spending to revise my financial habits).

By and large, the spreadsheet is the same as the simple expense tracker from past years. You put in your categories, expenses, and income, and the spreadsheet tallies your savings and yearly totals. You can get an exact idea of where your money is going.

The spreadsheet can be downloaded in the Financial Tools section. (And if you’re wondering, I maintain single page with all the site’s spreadsheets to avoid broken and outdated links in individual posts).

A preview of the spreadsheet

Here is a sample of the expense tracking spreadsheet (click image for larger preview):

Using the spreadsheet in Open Office, Google Spreadsheets, or Microsoft Excel

You can use the budgeting spreadsheet into most common spreadsheet programs (if you see something odd,  use common sense or email me please).

Time commitment

Some people worry it will take a long time to budget and track their money. It takes me about two minutes every day. When I get busy, I just collect all of my receipts and write them down as soon as I get free.

(To download the file, see the “free budget and expense tracker” file in Financial Tools page)