How to Make a Monthly Budget Worksheet

Here is an easy way to manage your personal finances by creating a monthly budget worksheet. These free household budget planner sheets are printable making them both user friendly and versatile.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• laptop or home computer
• financial software like Microsoft Money
• calculator
• printer
• debts, income

1. If you have a home desktop PC, mac or personal notebook, you may access for free or can download a budget management software such as Microsoft Money to help design your monthly budget worksheet.

2. Design your monthly budget worksheet around 6 main categories:
   1. Total Monthly Gross Income
   2. Monthly Home Budget Expenses
   3. Monthly Car Expenses
   4. Monthly Debts
   5. Monthly Family Miscellaneous Expenses
   6. Total Net Monthly Income (free income available)

3. Monthly household budget expenses should include rent or mortgage, property and casualty, loan payments, utilities, taxes, and any household repairs.

4. Automotive expenses include car loans, gasoline, auto insurance, and maintenance make up the next category on your monthly budget worksheet.

5. Debts should include any credit loans and monthly balance you choose to pay make up the next budget worksheet category.

6. Next list any Miscellaneous expenses are any other personal expenses such as:
   -childcare/school
   -clothing, groceries
   -family entertainment, cable, videos, newspaper, magazines
   -medical, vet
   -clubs, association dues
   -investments, life insurance
   -vacation, gifts for holidays
   -haircuts, nails, etc.

7. Figure total monthly income at top of your budget worksheet, then total your monthly expenses for each category, and subtract to get your net income balance at the bottom.

Tips & Warnings

• Always round up when estimating your monthly expenses
• Get your household budget worksheet completed first and list as many as you can think of under miscellaneous before writing your own expenses in.
• Divide your printable budget sheets in 2 if paid bi-weekly or 4 if every week to help determine your monthly payment schedules
• Always include a category under miscellaneous for emergency or personal expenses and decide how much you can free up each week to add to this fund

Resources

• Barbie Collector
• Printable Budget Resources
• Personal Budget Solutions