Does anyone have examples of their spreadsheet they use for budgeting (If of course they use one)
Maybe share a screenshot or hyperlink to it if it possible and thought it would be nice for people to suggest things to add or functionality in a spreadsheet
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Actually would like to see how people do this too! I just use Google Sheetās basic budgeting one.
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I have a local copy saved - keep meaning to put it in google docs so will share later on today
Thereās some good examples here, albeit fairly complicated as spreadsheets go: https://www.tillerhq.com/google-sheets-templates
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For mine, I broke spending down into essential, basics and fun, where essential is stuff like mortgage/rent, utilities, council tax, the minimum needed to eat etc; basics is TV, phones, car tax and payments, insurance, treat food etc and fun is eating out, bars, hobbies, travel etc.
That meant I could see what my minimum living costs could be should the worst happen, what Iād need to earn extra to be comfortable and the additional extra Iād need to really enjoy myself. The spreadsheet calculates what my emergency fund should look like for all three scenarios, what proportion of my income goes on each section and how my savings are (hopefully) increasing.
I added sections for my accounts in various banks etc, loans and liabilities so I can calculate my total net worth, then a section to project this into the future to determine when I can retire and still have my budget met by my savings.
All good fun and it taught me a lot about where Iām spending, what assumptions I need to make on returns and how much to save.
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I started out with the basics - not trying to base it on anyone elses spreadsheet but just making it mine. I wanted to track how my networth increased over time, so it was a very simple table with āmonth, cash, savings, investmentsā.
I then wanted to track my credit score, so I added those into a new sheet.
Then I wanted to track my donations (people donating me money for my blog and youtube channel), then merchandise sales etc. It looks super ugly, but I only add things when I want to do something. I found that downloading a spreadsheet online and trying to make it fit around me didnāt work so well - I hand-built my own.
I used IFFT to auto-import all my transactions from Monzo too.
ATM Iām working on a sort of widget? Everytime I buy something on credit card, it gets entered into the spreadsheet, Iām writing a program that reads this new transaction and moves money from my Monzo account to a pot, and when my Monzo account hits Ā£10 send me an alert that Iām about to actually go into debt.
I have it set up so that whenever I receive a donation, the users email & how much is saved into another sheet & a program I wrote automatically emails them a āthank youā.
I also used linear regression to predict how much money Iāll get next month, or a year from now.
I think the best way you can make your own is to just decide what do you need right now, and try to implement it yourself. If you need some way to track every penny you spend, the Monzo / IFFT integration is good (unless you use other banks, then manual input is needed).
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Love to see this!
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This is the budgeting spreadsheet Iāve created for myself and Iāve got a few friends and family on it so they can keep an idea of how much you can spend
You copy COL B into COL D and mark them off as you pay bills
Iāve mucked around with the numbers a bit
I have a spreadsheet Iāve been using for a few years. Itās got steadily more complicated over the years, but accounts for the two things I need to be careful of: Infrequent but recurring subscriptions and costs, and pre-orders for things shipping months later. I also include GBP to JPY and USD conversions. Might be worth a look: https://www.dropbox.com/s/p2w0be9l9ioo9u8/Budgeting%20Spreadsheet%20template.xlsx?dl=0 (tweaked version to be more generic)
I always had issues using spreadsheets to budget. I would forget to fill things in sometimes and totals wouldnāt add up correctly and it was just a general mess.
I use YNAB for my budgetting as I can input via mobile - and import transactions via csv or qif.
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This is one of my favourite things, and Iāve spent a lot of time (about 2 years) setting up a system that works for me. Originally it was just to help me pay off my credit card debt, but I actually now really enjoy it and it has helped me plan/save a lot.
I plan about 3 months out at a time, and when I plan something with friends etc I just add a line and an estimate in.
My two spreadheet tabs attached - fake numbers and details of course!!
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One thing I feel like I need to add with my spreadsheet I added is, if youāre not good at budgeting or donāt like keeping a spreadsheet up to date then explain less.
For example with mine it give you an x amount that you can spend, thatās money you can do whatever you want with, coffee, gifts, treats, food etc.
I find most peoples issue with this sort of budgeting is they put down an almost minute by minute spending, this gets tedious very quickly, be fair on yourself!
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I keep a relatively simple spreadsheet that breaks down in to categories for things I know I must save for, things I would like to save for, and then this monthās particular spending on household/food, travel and my personal spending.
I used to have more categories, but I noticed that sometimes I would look at a category and think 'Iāve got enough money to cover buying that now." and it would encourage me to spend the money more quickly than I would otherwise. In other words, my saving category was almost encouragement to spend the money because I wouldnāt āmiss the moneyā in the usual sense.
So instead I removed some of those categories that were not essential so that if I wanted to spend money on something I would have to give it some thought as to where the money would come from, and perhaps during that process I might change my mind.
I never thought to include graphs in mine before (No idea why it seems so obvious)
It looks great!
I really like the fact you are able to see trends in yours to see if things are beginning to get out of hand and where you need to start watching the spending a little more
This is a great thread , and really some of the reasons the likes of Monzo and Starling exist in a nutshell, To get control over your finances - all good ideas to be worked upon to get the potential of financial stability in your life - love it
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I started off with spreadsheets and quickly got sick of the maintenance of it all. The benefit is that you can tailor it to exactly how you like but I prefer the convenience of the existing apps / tools out there.
I currently use YNAB for my budgeting itās so good, only downside being the annual fee. Iām going to have another look at Money Dashboard / Yolt though since theyāre free. My biggest need is the ability to budget ahead and split transactions so things are categorised accurately.
Thatās actually one of my biggest requests for the Monzo app:
Customisable categories
Split transactions
For now though, thanks to all these new fintechs being ahead of the curve, all the API stuff allows me to sync from Monzo to YNAB. So the second I spend something it is added to my budget and transaction list there.
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Oooooo I love a good spreadsheet (only when budgeting. Hate Excel the rest of the time!!!)
So my spreadsheet I split into 3 tabs: Bills, Summary, Re-payments.
Tab 1 - Bills
Because both me and my wife have our own individual accounts and then a joint where most of the bills came out of, I set 3 different tables. One for each account. In said table would be the bill name, cost, date of payment and category. Under the joint table there was also an extra column for who paid, me, my wife or joint.
Then under each table would be a summary of how much total costs would come out of each account. The joint table would also take joint bills (mortgage, utilities etc) and divide the cost by two. Thereby giving me a good indication as to how much each of us had to put into either of our accounts each month.
Tab 2 - Summary
This one would have a table that summarised all the categories from tab 1 and tell me how much we were spending on what per month. (The amount we were paying on credit cards and loans a month horrified me) I would also add in our pay at this point, used a formula to take away current and joint bill payments which then left me with spare expenditure for the month.
Tab 3 - Re-payments
All of our credit cards and loans were laid out in a horizontal table. At the top would be the month and year, the left hand columns would have the bill type, the balance as of when I created the table, whose responsibility it was to pay and when the interest free period would end (I would then highlight these cells in yellow). I used formulas to take off the basic payments off each cc/loan and then would use this to calculate which credit cards needed extra paying towards it first.
However, I have been teaching myself SQL so have transferred most of this into a SQL database that I created 
Sorry for boring you all. I do love my budget sheet!
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I have been keeping a fairly simple spreadsheet (Google Sheets) for the last 2yrs:
It lists all payments due and their due dates.
Entertainment, Groceries, regular payments etc.
I record all spending and this is tallied against the āallowanceā in each these categories.
Yes Monzo has this, but it is not as clear to see or as easy to manipulate and customise as a spreadsheet, though Monzo helps me greatly with managing the spending and viewing past spending.
Each month has a new sheet, duplicated from the month before and modified as necessary, with the balance from the last month brought over to the starting balance of the new month.
It isnāt perfect and Iād like to make it much better, but it is a work in progress.
Iām on day 24 of my 34 day trial of YNAB and itās unlikely that Iāll stick with it. Reasons:
ā¢ I can ā and will ā improve my spreadsheets to give me better future projections.
ā¢ I enjoy owning my own data and having the ability to improve it as I go along.
ā¢ Cost
ā¢ Hassle to import the data from UK banks to YNAB (and I havenāt been able to get the fintech to ynab api-heroku integration to work).
I like a good spreadsheet/budgeting thread. Thanks for the tips and personal use cases Iāll be sure to add some of these to my own spreadsheets and workflows.
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No that is great! You canāt bore us I think we are all a little nerdy haha