How to Make an Excel Spreadsheet for Monthly Expenses

Learning how to create your own monthly budget is good for your financial health. Budgeting helps you build a healthy relationship with your monthly income and learn to manage your fixed expenses.

However, a monthly budget Excel spreadsheet is not only used to manage your personal finances. It is also helpful in budgeting the family’s income and a business’ income sources.

If you are wondering how to make an Excel spreadsheet for monthly expenses, this article will give you ideas on how to go about it.

Understanding Budgeting

The first step to a healthy financial outlook is understanding key terminologies such as budget, income, and expenses. A budget is a list that includes your actual income, budgeted income, actual spending, and savings.

An income includes your wage and investment returns. Expenses, on the other hand, are anything you spend money on. Spending can include personal and household purchases, bill payments, and retirement and emergency budgets.

Maintaining a budget spreadsheet will not only keep you at peace with your finances, but it can also keep your debt levels at a minimum as you develop good money habits.

Why Create a Personal Budget Template?

Different people have their own reasons why they budget their money. Below are some good reasons for creating a personal budget template.

Financial goals

Anyone who starts and maintains a budget has a financial goal in mind. Your financial goals may include saving for retirement, paying your student loan, making credit card payments, paying for a house or car, and many more.

These goals guide your decisions in creating your overall budget. Hence, the Excel expenses spreadsheet you make may differ from those of your family and friends.

Budget period

You create an income budget either monthly or yearly. Your decision as to which budget period to use depends on what you are budgeting for.

Calculating total income

You must know your total income. You can create a budget spreadsheet in order to keep track of all the money you earn from various income sources on a monthly or yearly basis.

Knowing how much you earn will help you make wiser decisions on how to handle your money and increase it.

Calculating total expenses

In budgeting, tracking your total expenses is very important. Not only should you know how much you are earning, but you should also know how much you are spending. Calculating your expenses will give you an idea of which particular expense you spend too much on.

Tracking and reducing expenses

It is common for many people to lose control of their budget and spend over their desired budget. That is why some people make use of a budget spreadsheet to track their expenses and gain control over their impulse to spend unnecessarily.

Steps in Creating a Monthly Budget Spreadsheet

If you want to learn how to make an Excel spreadsheet for your monthly expenses, you can do it in two ways. You can use a free and customizable budget template or create an Excel budget template from scratch.

Using a Free Budget Template

If you hate budgeting and consider it a waste of time, you may change your mind when you see a visually appealing budgeting spreadsheet template.

Technology has been helpful because everything is made available online these days. There are several websites that create budget templates for free. You only need to download and use these templates on your Excel spreadsheet.

The advantage of using pre-made templates is that they look great, and the necessary formulas for budgeting are already encoded and ready for data automation.

If you are looking for free budget templates for your monthly budget spreadsheet, you should definitely check out Simplesheets.co. This website has professionally made and highly customizable templates.

How to Create an Excel Expenses Spreadsheet from Scratch

If you can’t find a budget spreadsheet template that can serve your needs, you can always make one from scratch. Here is how to create your own expenses spreadsheet in Excel.

Start with a blank workbook

In a blank Excel workbook, take into account all the money coming in (income) and all the money going out (expenses). You can decide on your own column headings, what data to include, and the layout for your workbook.

Set up the actual income tab

As you make an Excel spreadsheet for monthly expenses, the next step is to create an income section in your workbook by labeling the first three columns with the date, income, and source.

You can use the Merge and Center function to make your heading labels more visually engaging. Once done, you can encode budget data into your workbook and format it.

Add formulas to the spreadsheet

Your Excel budget spreadsheet is useless if there are no functioning formulas encoded. You can use the SUM function to add your income and expenses columns.

Add a list of expenses

You already know how much your income is. But your Excel budget spreadsheet will not be complete without the expenses list. Therefore, the next step is determining how to spend your income wisely.

You can create your expenses list either on the same tab as your income list or use a separate one. Regularly update your expenses list whenever you make purchases to know if you are still within budget.

Add other necessary sections

Aside from the income and expenses columns, other necessary sections can be helpful in your budgeting, and you should include them as you make an Excel spreadsheet for monthly expenses. You can add headings such as funds and savings.

Know your final balance

Once you have formatted and labeled your spreadsheet, the next step is to be able to determine the total or final balance of each column. You can label your rows with Total Spending or Total Balance.

Insert visual elements

As you make an Excel spreadsheet for your monthly expenses, this last step of adding visual elements is optional. The use of visual elements such as graphs and charts can help you visualize your income and expenses data.

You can add a pie chart or bar graph to your spreadsheet by adding a percentage column on your Excel budget spreadsheet.

Final Thoughts

Budgeting is a personal choice, and creating a budget spreadsheet is your personal commitment to your financial health.

Your budget spreadsheet need not be complicated and intimidating. Instead, the formulas and calculations should help make your spreadsheet interesting through automatization.

Excel is an excellent tool for budgeting because it is customizable and easy to set up. You can use pre-designed templates to encourage you to start creating your own Excel spreadsheet for your monthly income and expenses.

This is a contributed post.

Understanding Budgeting

Why Create a Personal Budget Template?

Steps in Creating a Monthly Budget Spreadsheet

Final Thoughts

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