example excel sheet for monthly expenses

Your IncomeĮven if your income comes from different sources at different times, with this Excel budget spreadsheet, you can input your earnings as they come and the spreadsheet will adjust as you add new numbers. What to do Before Startingīoth your income and your expenses might change every month or every period, so before starting to budget you need to determine your income, expenses, and come up with some categories. If it takes too much of your time and depending on your situation, this method might not work well for you. If you lead a busy life, this method might not be adequate as it is more time consuming and it takes both planning and consistency. Zero-Based budgeting might not be appropriate for all budgeting situations. It’s more flexible than traditional budgeting, as it allows you to focus on different sectors of your expenses to accommodate your needs in different periods.

With this method you can also increase your debt payoff, investments, and savings because you reign in all unnecessary spending that doesn’t align with your long-term goals. When every penny spent goes through an analysis decision, you have more control of your finances. Zero-based budgeting allows for superior spending intentionality, easily cutting out unnecessary spending, reaching financial goals quickly, and more budget flexibility. You would then take that $20 and reallocate it toward a new goal so that every dollar has a name and a plan! Advantages Or perhaps you spent more than planned in another budget category, and you could use it there.

Every dollar needs a goal and a purpose! If it doesn’t get spent on groceries, perhaps it will go directly toward debt payoff, or savings. You would then take that extra $20 that you didn’t spend on groceries (hooray for spending less than planned!) and put it toward something specific. You stayed within budget, yay! Goal met, right? With zero-budgeting, start with your income from each paycheck and plot out which bills it will pay for, how much you can afford for groceries and other variable expenses, and then see if there’s any room for saving, debt payoff, and investing until $0 are left unplanned.įor example, with traditional budgeting if you were to budget $500 for groceries and end up spending $480, the extra $20 would likely just sit in your bank account with no purpose. The main difference is that with traditional budgeting, you would set a limit for yourself on how much to spend on groceries, gas, and bills and try to stick to that.

Example excel sheet for monthly expenses