First up — download the Budget Tracking Tool as an Excel spreadsheet, or as a Google Sheets spreadsheet (both have the same features, but the google version sometimes runs a bit slower). These spreadsheets — like everything else on this site — are completely free, and will always remain so.
[These spreadsheets were originally published in 2018, and were last updated on March 7, 2024. A new “Historical Comparison” tab has been added to compare one time period against another, and there’s also a new and improved layout for the “Dashboard” tab!]
Table of Contents
Keeping track of your budget is the single most important step towards taking control of your financial well-being.
Before you can draw up a plan for a home down payment, debt pay-down, or retirement, you’ll need to understand how much money comes in, and how much money goes out.
Many of us keep track of our budgets in our heads, often using a mix of precision, guesstimates, and “voodoo math”.
While it’s easy to list off monthly rent, internet, or Netflix bills, it’s harder to keep tabs on the “one-off” items. Most of us have a laundry list of small or infrequent expenses that add up into a meaningful total — the lunches out, drinks with friends, new clothing, impromptu weekend trips, and the like…
If you only have a vague sense of how much you spend in an average month, chances are that you’re underestimating the actual figure.
I’d like to offer you a simple spreadsheet that you can use to track your budget, and visualize where your money is going each month. You can download the spreadsheet by clicking the links at the top of this post, or by clicking here for the Excel version or the Google Sheets version (both have the same features, but the google version sometimes runs a bit slower).
In my personal spreadsheet, I’ve got more than 10 years of data tracked down to the penny. It’s amazing to be able to quickly see how my income & expenses have trended over a long time period. This helps me to feel in control of my spending, and be more confident in my long-term plans.
Say hello to your new financial dashboard!
After inputting your expenses and income, you’ll be presented with your own version of this. Think of this as the new mission-control room for your financial life.
It might just be me (it can’t just be me, can it?), but I love scanning through these visuals every time I open up the file.
This dashboard will show:
In other words, you’ll have a neat and tidy snapshot of your financial picture generated for you each time you update your spreadsheet.
If the dashboard visuals didn’t convince you to jump in and start budgeting, here’s why I think this spreadsheet is the best tool for the job:
The tabs of the spreadsheet are colour-coded — the blue tabs are where you need to enter manual inputs, whereas the Green tabs are outputs that will update automatically based on your data.
On the ‘Category Setup’ tab, you can modify the labels used to categorize your expense / income transactions. I’ve already included default category names which will hopefully work for most people, so there is no need to make changes here unless you’d like to.
On the ‘Expenses’ tab, enter all of your expense transaction data. Enter each expense transaction as a separate row.
On the ‘Income’ tab, please enter all of your income transaction data (same process as the ‘Expenses’ tab)
A few tips for inputting your data into these tabs:
My approach is to update my personal budgeting spreadsheet every month or two. This is normally a Sunday morning activity with a round-trip time of an hour to brew coffee, download my banking transactions to CSV, paste into the spreadsheet, and sip my coffee while poring over the newest results ☕😏.
I find this “batch” approach to be the easiest, but several users have mentioned that they prefer to manually input their transactions each day. Choose whichever method floats your boat!
On the ‘Budget Targets’ tab, enter your monthly target amounts for your expenses and income by category (see yellow highlighted cells below). For example, a rent target of $1,300 per month is shown below.
Now, the spreadsheet will handle the heavy lifting! No more manual inputs are required from you — the charts will update automatically.
At a glance, you can see your total income / spending / savings, how your finances are trending on a month-by-month basis, and breakdowns by category.
By selecting an option from the menus, you can toggle between different time periods, and also drill down into a single expense category.
For a deeper look into your finances, the ‘Historical Comparison’ tab allows you to compare your income, spending, and savings in one time period against another time period.
You can toggle the time period comparison easily at the top of the tab.
This tab gives quick answers to questions such as:
The ‘Comparison to Budget Targets’ tab will now be updated for you automatically as well. Here, you can see a summary of your expense / income / savings data, and the comparison of your actual figures versus your budget targets.
You can enter your own custom date range at the top of the tab, so you’ll be able to summarize any time period that you’d like.
This feature can be used to create an end-of-quarter or end-of-year summary of your finances, showing where each of your dollars went, and how this compared against your targeted goals.
1) Can I change the currency in the spreadsheet to be euros, pounds, or yen instead?
You’ll need to make manual updates to your spreadsheet to change the currency formatting.
To change the format of cells, here is a guide: https://www.howtogeek.com/240316/how-to-change-the-currency-symbol-for-certain-cells-in-excel/
All of the cells currently formatted as $ would need to be changed.
Otherwise, you can just use the default version and ignore the “$” symbols. It’s just visual formatting. For example, you could just consider $1,000 to be the same thing as €1,000 or £1,000.
In other words, ignore the currency symbol and only focus on the number itself.
2) I’m having trouble with the date formatting, the dashboard isn’t updating with any information, and/or how can I change the default MM-DD-YYYY date formatting?
The spreadsheet was built to accept dates in MM-DD-YYYY format (for example, May-20-2023 is written as 05-20-2023).
However, sometimes users will need to enter dates in YYYY-MM-DD or DD-MM-YYYY formatting instead. I’m guessing it has something to do with the excel version, operating system, or default system date settings that people have on their computer.
Please try entering dates in a different format instead to see if this helps.
Alternatively, please try using the google sheets version instead of the excel version. Google sheets tends to be a bit smarter in handling dates.
If you’d like to change the default date formatting, you can follow this guide: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/56470?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en
See the section about customizing a date / custom formats. The current format used in the file is MM-DD-YYYY. If you edit the custom formatting, you can change it instead to YYYY-MM-DD or DD-MM-YYYY.
You’d need to make this change in the date columns of the Expenses and Income tabs.
3) How should I input my savings into the tool?
The way I use the budgeting tool personally is that I input money that comes in (ie, from my job) and the money that goes out (my bills and spending), with the remainder being the leftover savings.
I don’t track any transfers of money from one account to another, since that’s just the “left hand paying the right hand” — for example, I don’t record an expense if I transfer $1,000 from my checking account into my savings account or into my retirement accounts (for Canadians: TFSA / RRSP accounts).
The savings number on the dashboard will then be the total of your income, minus the total of your expenses.
In other words, this budgeting spreadsheet isn’t used to track where your savings go — whether they go into your savings accounts or retirement accounts. It just tracks your cash inflows, cash outflows, and the remaining savings over the time period.
To track my account balances, I use a separate net worth tracking spreadsheet where I input my account balances at the end of each month. This is how I keep track of where my money is allocated and how my individual account balances are changing each month. If you’d like, you can copy that net worth tracking tab into your budgeting spreadsheet, in order to keep everything in one file.
4) How can I build another pie chart that shows my spending broken down by specific stores/merchants (Amazon, Walmart, Netflix, etc.)?
To build a new chart like that, you could try the following:
Create a table with a column for “merchant name”, and another column for “spending”.
For the second column, use the SUMIFS formula to sum the expenses on the Expenses tab accordingly — you will need to enter in criteria for the merchant name (text in the first column), and also date range if you’d like.
Tips on using the SUMIFS formula: https://exceljet.net/excel-functions/excel-sumifs-function
As an alternative solution, please read through the comment section below for tips from user “Fred T.” (you may need to go back to the older comment pages), a user who has mastered using “pivot tables” to do this kind of analysis and much more!
5) How do you record a payment to a credit card?
For my own personal budgeting, I use the following method:
If you’re having issues with the budget tracking tool, please follow the steps listed in this troubleshooting guide. If you continue to have issues, please let me know.
August 2019 update: An awesome reader of this site — a YouTuber going by the name of The Frugal Minimalist — has created a fantastic video tutorial on YouTube, showing us how to use this budget spreadsheet in Google Sheets. Highly recommended If you’re a visual learner who wants a step-by-step guide to this tool!
Mint is (was) the world’s most popular budgeting tool. The platform launched in 2006, grew like wildfire, and was acquired by Intuit in 2009 for $170 million. Mint subsequently grew to have ~20 million users worldwide.
Intuit announced that Mint will be permanently shut down in March 2024, leaving millions of users in the dark (think of the people! what will the people do without budget tracking!).
I am quite biased as the creator of a budgeting spreadsheet, but I do think this serves as a useful illustration of the benefit of using spreadsheets instead of apps.
A spreadsheet lasts forever (as long you don’t delete it from your computer), doesn’t require you to share personal / banking details, and is ad-free. The same can’t be said of apps like Mint (R.I.P.), Monarch, Simplifi, Empower, Nerd Wallet, and the like.
If you’re a former user of Mint who is hoping to migrate to this spreadsheet instead, you can export your transactions from Mint into a “CSV” (Comma Separated Values) format which you can then paste into the Expenses and Income tabs of this budget tracking spreadsheet.
Follow these steps to export your Mint transaction data history:
Once you start tracking your budget, you’ll be able to identify areas of improvement. You can also set targets for yourself (such as cutting down your spending on eating out, or saving a certain amount each month), and be able to track your progress towards those goals.
With a solid grasp on your budget, you’ll be able to start investing, keep tabs on your (growing!) portfolio, and plan for your retirement.
Thank you for taking the time to check out this tool. I hope that you find it useful, and that it helps you meet your goals.
For any questions, feedback, or random thoughts, please let me know either through the comments below or by email at themeasureofaplan@gmail.com.
—
Header image credit: Keiffer Buckles
—
P.S., if you’d like to show your appreciation for this spreadsheet, you can buy me a coffee or beer by clicking the little blue button below 🙂
View Comments
This is an excellent spreadsheet!
The only category that is missing is investments. I'd like to be able to see how my investments (TFSA/RRSP ..Canadian here, similar to the 401k and stuff) are growing and how much I've contriuted.
Also a way to categorize the time frame into 4 week segments instead of monthly, as alot of people are paid biweekly. As a result some monthly you get paid 3 times, so that month looks good. Or some months there are 3 weekends, so more eating out/bars happen.
Thank you for the feedback!
I plan to build another tool for tracking investments. Goal would be to let users input their 'trade log' (when they bought and sold shares, the dollar amounts) and then the tool would output net worth over time, returns, and a view of the current portfolio holdings / diversification. Stay tuned!
Great point on the time frames. The ability for the charts to use 4 week periods instead of months would be useful. I'll have to give some thought on how to implement such a change given that I think it will take quite a bit of re-piping.
Thanks again for your comment, this was great feedback.
Hi,
Have you had the chance to make the investment tool yet? I’m really looking forward to it!
Yes! See here:
https://themeasureofaplan.com/investment-portfolio-tracker/
Great work! I've switched over from my own spreadsheet to using your tool. I love the dashboard.
Thanks so much!
I'm really happy to hear that! Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for improvement.
Neat tool -- thanks for sharing! I have two suggestions.
First, is it possible to add a field where a user can add their budget for each category (perhaps allowing both per month and per year options) and then integrate that information into the dashboard views? It would be helpful to see where expenses and earnings line up as compared to what was planned.
Second, is it possible to create a Google Form to input expense and income data into the Sheets version? This would be a great shortcut to have -- on mobile devices in particular.
This is great feedback - thank you.
In the next version, I will be adding in the ability for users to set their budget for each item, and will have that integrated into the dashboard for tracking purposes.
For the Google Form comment, this is an awesome idea. Do you mean allowing the user to input expenses through their phone, which would then sync to the Google sheets document?
I'm not familiar with Google Forms, and have never done an integration between Sheets and Forms. Are there any resources or tutorials you can point me towards so that I can learn how to do that? I would love to add this feature.
Thanks again!
I'm certainly no expert in Google Forms, but my understanding is that you can link a Form and a Sheet such that the data from submissions in a Form automatically populates the Sheet in a designated place.
On a phone, a user could create a shortcut to the Form (there might even be a widget - not sure) so that they can go straight there to input new data every time they have a new expense or new income.
Here's a Google tutorial on Forms that might be a good place to start: https://gsuite.google.com/learning-center/products/forms/get-started/
Thanks! I'll look into it.
Hey LG,
Thanks again for your feedback. I've added in the functionality for the user to enter their 'budget targets', and the dashboard now shows this info alongside the actual data.
I've also added a new tab 'Variance to budget detail' which shows each category's actual and budgeted spend, with the $ and % variance. You can enter your own date ranges here so you can summarize whatever time period you'd like.
The post above / underlying file now reflects that change.
I am looking into the Google Forms integration next, but that change will likely take more time.
Cheers!
Hi thanks for creating this amazing spreadsheet!
I am an excel noob and have a maybe stupid question about the "Income by Category (Monthly)" section on the dashboard.
I split my income to: (1) pure cash (what I get in my account each month and what I use for all expenses - the remainder of which goes to my bank account) and (2) mandatory savings that go into my country's pension plan (I'm not a US citizen) and which I can eventually utilize as downpayment to purchase property etc.
By default 100% of category (2) goes into the fund and I don't touch, but the "Income by Category (Monthly)" section shows savings as split there. Is there any way that it can track deductions purely based on my job income, versus other types of income?
Or is the only option that this category (2) just need to be hidden?
Thank you!
Hi CP,
You're very welcome!
To make sure I understand, I'll use a made up example. Let's say you have income of $4,000 per month (gross pay), with taxes of $1,000 per month, and contributions to your pension of $500 per month.
Your pay net of taxes and pension contributions would be $2,500 per month, which corresponds to the (1) in your example. This would be the amount actually going into your bank account each month.
Your contributions to your pension plan would be $500 per month, which is the (2) in your example.
If that is the case, the way I would record this in the budget tracking tool would be to input both (1) and (2) on the 'income' tab of the spreadsheet, for a total of $3,000 per month. I would input them separately in different categories (e.g., "job - $2,500" and "pension contribution - $500"). I would include the pension contribution in this tool because it is still income, regardless of it goes into your bank account or not. Not including it would understate your savings / savings rate.
I hope this answers your question. If you'd like to discuss in more detail, you can also send me an email. My email is at the bottom of this post.
Cheers!
Hi there - sorry, I had some issues keying in data and I've figured it out now. Your suggestion made perfect sense - thank you!
when i try to paste values only from my downloaded csv file into expenses or income column, the dates are not properly accepted by your spreadsheet. it pastes in a MM/DD/YYYY format and your spreadsheet only takes it in MM-DD-YYYY format. Any idea how to automate this so i dont have to go any manually input each row??
Hi Barry,
Sorry to hear that you are having issues.
If your CSV file data is formatted in MM/DD/YYYY format, it should paste in fine to my spreadsheet if you 'paste as values'.
See this link for a guide on how to do that on the 'How to Paste as Values or Text' tab: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cT-MVaNSj5-TTubP6j7Df9y9wxdFckg-0kUrjdAhTnU/edit#gid=1337138691
Alternatively, if your CSV file data is formatted as DD/MM/YYY format (i.e., you need to switch day and month), you can see the same link, but on the 'Troubleshooting Instructions' tab there is a guide to swapping day and month. See the bottom on that tab.
Let me know if this solves the issue. If you'd like, you can send me an email (see my email at the bottom of the post), and I'll try to resolve it for you.
Hey - first off.... amazing. I recently quit Mint because of bad functionality as well as privacy concerns and hadn't really been tracking my stuff. This spreadsheet is great, and now I feel stupid for procrastinating creating one... I didn't have to!
I do have one question - it's May right now. In the dashboard, under Time Period, it says "Last Month (Aug-18)" and "Last 3 months" (Jun-18 to Aug-18). Am I missing a date adjustment somewhere? Date is set correctly on my computer, though I've only uploaded May transactions to the spreadsheet so far.
Hey Zanthia,
Thanks for the kind words!
Are you using the excel version? I have a feeling that some of your date values have the 'day' and 'month' swapped (dd-mm-yyyy instead of mm-dd-yyyy).
For example, it could be that the tool thinks a date is August 5th 2018, instead of May 8th 2018.
Can you try the troubleshooting step 7 at this link? It is at the bottom of the page. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cT-MVaNSj5-TTubP6j7Df9y9wxdFckg-0kUrjdAhTnU/edit#gid=944042521
You can use that to swap your day and month values.
If that doesn't work, can you share your spreadsheet with me by email (see the bottom of the post for my email)? I'll take a look and troubleshoot.
Hello there,
Love the spreadsheet! I just have a quick query.
I successfully pasted about 6 months worth of income and expenses. However, when i go to the dashboard it shows total income (lets say its 90K) then it shows total expenses (70K) and then total savings as 160k instead of (90-70=20k). It appears that it is taking my expenses as income somehow. Am i doing something wrong to cause this ? I have also noticed with the pie graphs, after I add a few more categories it will display "n/a" for all the labels.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Matt
Hey Matt,
A strange one! Perhaps you've entered your expense numbers as negatives? Can you check if there is a minus symbol in front of your expenses?
If you send me a copy of your spreadsheet, I'll take a look and troubleshoot. You can find my email at the bottom of the post.
Here's a super stupid question: is there a way to change it all to be in a different currency than USD? If there isn't, which cells should I change the format of?
Massive thank you for this tool!
Hey Alex,
Not a stupid question at all! There's actually not an easy way to do that unfortunately.
To change the format of individual cells, here is a guide: https://www.howtogeek.com/240316/how-to-change-the-currency-symbol-for-certain-cells-in-excel/
Pretty much all the cells currently formatted as $ would need to be changed.
To change the currency format for your entire computer, you can use these steps: https://www.howtogeek.com/240216/how-to-change-windows-default-currency-from-dollars-to-euros/
If you send me an email at themeasureofaplan@gmail.com and let me know what currency you want the spreadsheet in, I'd be happy to help you in making those format changes.
Love your spreadsheet. Thank you for your hard work in putting this together for everyone's use!
Hi Pedram, thanks for letting me know! You are very welcome.
First of all, a terrific spreadsheet. I tried several of budget/expense tracking apps, but there is always something missing. I was starting to build my own spreadsheet, and then stumbled onto this on Reddit. It looks great, just what I need and I couldn't get so many things for at least a year.
There is only one "small" thing that I would find also great to have: subcategories for expense categories. For Instance, I would have apartement as category and then rent, utilities, electricity, gas, internet as subcategories and etc.
I think this would help me get a better overview over the months where my money is going. It doesn't have to be literally like this, but some sort of a mechanism where I can group several categories into one bigger categorie for a better overview.
Would something like this be possible? I imagine it would take some work :/
Hi John,
Really happy to hear that you're getting good use out of this.
Good idea on the parent / sub categories. I'll do some thinking about how this could be built. I want to keep this budgeting tool simple and easy to use, so I don't want to force people to go through too many steps if that's not what they want.
Stay tuned...