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Monthly Budget Template
It can be hard to figure out exactly how much money you spend each month. Creating a personal budget can help you plan ahead to learn how you can save money for important things in your life.
Most people think that a budget is difficult to use or follow, but honestly, it is so easy. It will help you hit your long-term goals and short-term goals.
For example, maybe you want to have $500 in an emergency fund, or you want to go on a dream vacation or start saving for your retirement, budgeting can help you do that.
Using this budget worksheet will help you to get the process started and take a closer look at your overall finances.
If you prefer not to use this printable, you can also just use an excel spreadsheet, google sheets or any other method you prefer. The important part is that you just start to track EVERYTHING.
You’ll first need to print out a copy of the worksheet. (click below to instantly download a copy)
You’ll notice the expenses column on the worksheet is blank so you can customize it.
Start by filling in your monthly income.
I know for some people (like me) this can vary. You’ll want to start by putting in the expected monthly income amount. Try looking at the last few months and coming up with an average.
This can be your weekly or bi-weekly paycheck amount and any other forms of income you have:
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Wages
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Salary
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Investments
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Social Security payments
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Gifts
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Selling items
Next, you will need to look back over all of your previous monthly expenses so that you can begin to fill out the “budgeted amount” category.
You can do this by going through your checking account or any other expense tracker that you use. Each expense will need to be added into its own budget category.
Some of your monthly expenses can include:
For example, if your monthly rent or mortgage is $1000/month you will want to make sure you put that amount in the budgeted column.
Another example, is if last month you paid $50 for your trash collection bill, but you know it can fluctuate a little bit, you can budget $5-$10 more in that column to make sure you have enough to cover that expense next month.
Once you start paying your bills each month you will enter the actual amount of the bill into that column. Then, you subtract the budgeted amount and the actual amount to get the difference.
This will let you see how much money you have left over each month for your budgeted amount and the actual amount.
After each month you can take your total expenses and subtract it from your total income to see how much money you have left.
Then, you can start taking a percentage of that money and putting into your savings account.
I like to have the money automatically transferred to my savings account at the beginning of each month to ensure that I am saving BEFORE I can spend it (or waste it!) on something else.
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