How to Prepare a Family Budget Spreadsheet

The best way to tackle your home finances is to develop a family budget spreadsheet to track your family income versus expenses.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Laptop or personal family computer
• HP desktop printer
• Financial Software program for money management
• budget calculator
• income, expenses

1. If your family has a home PC, mac, or laptop, you may access for free or can download from the internet a budget management software such as Microsoft Money to help design your spreadsheet.

2. Design your budget spreadsheet around 6 main categories: 1. Total Monthly Family Income 2. Monthly Home Budget Expenditures 3. Monthly Auto Expenses 4. Monthly Debt 5. Monthly Family Living Expenses 6. Total Monthly Household Income (free income after expenses)

3. Monthly living expenses include rent or mortgage owed, property and casualty payments, loan payments, utilities, taxes, and any family repairs.

4. Auto expenses should include automobile loans, gas, car insurance, and automobile maintenance for your family. These payments make up the next category on your budget spreadsheet.

5. Family debts should include any credit loans and monthly balances owed make up the next budget spreadsheet category.

6. Next list Miscellaneous budget expenses on your spreadsheet to include other personal costs such as: -childcare/school costs/sports activities -clothing, food -family entertainment, cable, videos, newspaper, magazines -medical, vet -clubs, association dues -investments, life insurance -family vacations, gifts for holidays -haircuts, nails, etc.

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

Tips & Warnings

• Always round up when estimating your monthly family budget

• Get your household spreadsheet completed first and list as many as you can think of under miscellaneous before writing your own expenses in.

• Divide your family budget spreadsheets in 2 if paid bi-weekly or 4 if every week to help determine your monthly payment schedules

• Always include a category under miscellaneous expenses for emergencies and decide how much your family can free up each week to add to this fund

Resources

• Printable Budget Resource
• Printable Budget Sheets