How to Make a Family Budget in Excel

An Excel budget is an easy way to keep track of your living expenses. Creating one will help you to save money by setting financial parameters and providing you with better insight into your spending habits. You will feel more financially secure once you able to track your expenses using an Excel budget.

Things You'll Need

• Your household income after taxes
• Microsoft Excel
• A calculator

Instructions

1. Choose a time frame for your budget. Decide whether you want to track living expenses on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. The time frame for your Excel budget is entirely up to you. Once you choose a time frame, use simple math to calculate the total household income available to you within this period. Make sure to base your calculations on your income after taxes. Otherwise, you will be creating a budget based on money that will not be readily available.

2. Categorize your expenses. The next step is to break your living expenses into categories. In Excel, title your columns based on these categories, making sure to capture all expenses. You can be general, assinging your categories names like "Rent," "Bills" and "Food" or you can be more specific, further breaking down expenses using names like "Phone Bill" or "Cable Bill." The final column in your spreadsheet should be labeled, "Total."

3. Assign amounts. Move down to the next row in Excel and assign an amount to each column. Make sure the amounts add up to the total household income you have calculated for your budget. An easy way to monitor this math is by placing an Excel equation within your "Total" column. If you are in row two of Excel and, excluding the "Total" column, you are using columns A through E, your equation should look like this: =SUM(A2:E2). Now when you enter numbers into the other columns, the "Total" column will automatically add up the amounts.

4. Deduct costs. Now, skip to row four in Excel. The third row will be where you document your costs. Row four will tell you how much you have left to spend in each category. It will do this by subtracting row three from row two for each column, so populate this row with the following equation, substituting the letter "A" for the letter of the column in which you are working: =A2-A3. Place this equation in your "Total" column as well, so you can see how much money you have left, overall.

5. Document living expenses. Each time you make a purchase, save your receipt so you can enter the accurate amount into your Excel budget. If you have a bi-weekly budget but need to save for monthly payments, assign half the monthly amount to the appropriate category, knowing you will not spend this amount until the next bi-weekly period.

6. Review your spending habits. After the first budgeting period, examine your recorded expenses. Did you overspend in one area, but spend less than you had budgeted in another? Reallocate your funds accordingly. If you can, opt to put unused funds into savings.

Tips & Warnings

• Periodically compare your budget to your bank account. Do the totals match up? Don't assume your budget will reflect the amount you actually have on hand. You will inevitably make errors from time to time.

References

• vertex42: Personal Budget Excel Spreadsheet
• Spreadsheet123: How to Create a Personal Budget Spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel?