We know what we are going to earn each month, and we can plan very far in advance because of this. For us, we have two general areas that we use as our starting point, income and expenses.

Once you have your general areas, you can begin to get more specific with each of the areas. When you are looking to start a budget you really want to break down your areas of concern as simply as possible. You will also find links to our budget and downloads if you prefer a different version. Below you will find resources to help you start your own budget along with a tutorial on how we setup our budget. We use Google Sheets to help us keep our budget in order and with us at all times. Other: School loans School expenses Credit card payments money put into savings Miscellaneous.Our budget is fluid, flexible, and works for us.Financing expenses: Credit card fees check cashing fees Bank fees Other fees.Personal/Family Expenses Money sent to family Child support Daycare Clothing/Shoes Laundry Charitable giving Entertainment Other personal expenses.Health: Health Insurance Co-pays Medicine Other health expenses.Transportation: Car loan payments car insurance car maintenance public transit costs gas parking/tolls Other transportation expenses.Food: Groceries Eating out Other food expenses.Housing: mortgage or rent Utilities (power, gas, water) Internet, cable, satellite Insurance Other (taxes, HELOC payments, etc.).Here are some ideas for expense line items and categories, in case you miss any: Skip a line after this category and move on to Food, following the same pattern. In the cells below this one, fill in different housing expenses that you have each month, like mortgage or rent payments, utilities, and insurance, using one cell for each expense.

Start by skipping a line after your 'Total Income' cell in column A and write in 'Expenses.' In the next cell down, write in 'Housing.' This is the largest expense for most people, so create space for this category of expenses first. Because of this, it's easiest to split your expenses up into general categories. Odds are that there will be considerably more individual line item expenses than there are income items. Next, you need to input expense in the same way that you put in income. Recheck it to make sure that it matches the formula above.įill in expense titles.

If you receive an error message when entering the formula, this means that you have made an error in writing your formula.

Excel has many other functions that can be used to simplify calculations.

The SUM function in excel adds up the value contained within the specific cells, which can either be input individually (B2, B3, B4) or in a range (B2:B4).

The whole formula should look something like this: =SUM(B3:B4). Alternately, you can type in the cell range by typing the first and last cells, separated by a colon, into the SUM function.

In the example, this would be cells B3 to B4. Then, click the cell to the right of 'Net Pay' and drag down to the cell to right of your last income line item cell. In the cell directly to the right of that cell (B5 in the example), you need to create a formula to calculate total income. Create this cell in the next available cell underneath your last income line items (so, if you only have 'Net Pay' and 'Other Income,' this will be cell A5). When you've created cells for all of your types of income, you'll need one that totals up your monthly income. Make a cell that calculates total monthly income.

Personal budget google sheets