How It Works

The Budget Spreadsheet

Expenses Section:
The upper portion of the spreadsheet that relates to expenses and days of the month.
 
EXPENSES:
The first column labeled Expense is a list of your expense categories. You can alter the text in each row to suite your lifestyle. You can delete or insert additional rows as needed.

ESTIMATED:
The second column labeled EST is where you would put in the total dollar amount that you expect to spend that month. Don't worry about how accurate the number is to start, since as you go along a couple of months tracking you actuals you will be able to tweak it to better reflect what you actually spend.

ACTUAL:
The third column labeled ACT is a calculated column that you don't ever enter anything into directly. It is the sum of the actual amounts recorded in the days of the month columns for that row.

PERCENTAGE:
The fourth column labeled % is a calculated column that you don't ever enter anything into directly. It is the percentage difference between the EST and ACT columns.

DAYS OF THE MONTH:
The Days of the Month columns are where you would enter the expenses for that particular day. The spreadsheet will sum each days column into the TOTALS row. Each row will sum to the expenses ACT column for that row.

Some of the expenses are highlighted in Red so as to stand out as critical/important expenses to track. Highlight whichever expenses that you feel are important to you. i.e. Rent, Electric, Heat, Cable

You will also notice that some of the Days of the Month cells are highlighted in a color. This is a visual reminder of what day the expense needs to be payed by. Set these reminders as you fell are appropriate.

NOTE: Be careful when inserting a new row that the formulas that sum each column to the TOTALS row don't break.
 

Income Section:
The lower portion of the spreadsheet that relates to income.
 
ACTUAL:
This section of the spreadsheet is where you will enter your actual income recieved as you recieve it. There is a column for the Description of the income, the Amount, and the Recieved Date.

The first row of this section is described as Balance. This row is where you can enter the balance of your bank account as of the first day of the month. I found it hard to keep the balances in line when switching from an old month to the next month so I use this first row to reset/adjust the balance for the new month.

As rows are entered into this area the spreadsheet will total the income at the bottom of the section on the Total Income line.  

ESTIMATED:

SUMMARY:
The summary section has calculated fields that will indicate how much (Total Income Recieved)  equals actual income you have recieved and (Total Expenses Paid) equals how much actual expenses have been paid and the (Remaining Balance) indicates how much money is left in the account.

The (Remaining Expenses) field shows the sum of total expenses minus actual expenses.

The (Income minus Expenses) field shows the sum of actual income minus estimated expenses.

The (Act & Est Income - EXP) field shows the sum of actual income plus estimated income minus estimated expenses.

NOTE: Do not insert or delete any rows from this section or you may break the formulas that are used in the summary section.
 

Notes Section:
The lower portion of the spreadsheet that relates to notes.
 
NOTES:
This section of the spreadsheet is a two column area where you can enter notes or reminders about the months income and expenses. 

CRITICAL EXPENSES:

PAYMENT REMINDER:
The Payment Reminder highlighted cells indicate when an expenses need to be paid. I used a couple of different colors for the severity of the due date. Red means there is no flexibility with the date.

NOTE: The Notes, Critical Expenses, and Payment Reminder highlights are manual entered.