Tis the season, much like buying a home, the holiday season is a time when its easy to get swept away in the gift giving moment or Black Friday sale pressure and abandon the budget. So, while marketers are ramping up their advertising protect yourself and recommit to (or understand for the first time!) your financial goals and personal finance numbers.
This is the budget tracker I still use today, and that has kept me on track for my investment goals. The main ones being: maxing out my 401K, maxing out my HSA, continuing to acquire rental properties. Yet, before I could even think about making those goals I needed to first understand my numbers this is where the budget tracker comes in!
If this is your first time tracking your expenses, give yourself grace. It can be shocking to find out where all your money is going. Track your spending without judgement for 3 months this will give you a great set of data points to analyze.
Find the Google Sheets and Excel versions of the budget trackers here!
The link will take you to a google drive, please download the tracker to your personal desktop (Excel version) or make a copy to your drive (Google Sheets version) in order to start making changes.
Now that you’ve got the tracker, let me walk you through how to use it – it’s endlessly customizable to your finances and your goals. Use it as a jumping off point!
I created this budget tracker because I wanted an easy monthly snap shot of where all my money was going, I also like to check in on my net worth monthly – mainly because I’ve become a bit of a finance nerd and like to see how fluctuations in the market affect my investments. If the volatility of the market makes you anxious, I recommend checking in on your net worth quarterly!
Recurring Monthly Expenses
The first corner of the budget tracker is for your most basic numbers – how much money do you have coming in and how much do you have going out on a monthly basis. List all recurring bills, subscriptions, etc. and all sources of income. Tracking my baseline expenses has been a game changer for me, it helps me understand exactly where I can adjust my spending in order to hit larger goals, it also makes bill paying a breeze – everything is on autopay because I know exactly how much I need in my accounts to cover my bills.
This is also where I set goals for my month, anything from small goals like “no random Target/Amazon purchases” to larger goals like “Make final payment on car loan!”. I use this section to keep myself honest, each month I can analyze the past months spending and if I see myself slipping up in one area (looking at you brunches with friends...) I can set a goal to adjust that for the coming month. Annual goals are great, but a year is SO long and it’s easy to forget what you’re working towards.
Variable Monthly Expenses
Next is tracking your more variable expenses, like eating out, shopping, or miscellaneous bills. I add my recurring expenses into this area of the tracker as well so overtime I can get a general idea of my average total monthly spend with my recurring and variable expenses combined.
I have customized this tracker for buckets that align with my spending, but please customize to your hearts delight! Your money reflects your life, no two trackers will be the same – use this tracker as guideline.
Net Worth
Last is my favorite part – the big picture! This is where you add up all of your asset’s monetary value – for me my assets are my savings/investment accounts, car and rental properties. Yours may be wildly different! Think of anything in your life that has monetary value: boats, cryptocurrency, a Picasso painting, etc. The spreadsheet then takes the value of your assets minus your debts to give you your overall net worth.
Now if your net worth is currently negative – don’t panic. The first step to a positive net worth is understanding exactly what situation you are currently in, congratulate yourself for taking that first step and then use that information combined with the budget tracker to make a plan to get that net worth to a positive.
Reminder: if you are moving/adding cells you will have to redo the formulas in the spreadsheets as the formulas will break. Thankfully this tracker is very simple – the only formula you need to know is:
Net Worth = (Assets + Investments) – Debt
The rest of the formulas in the tracker are just simple additions of all the lines!
Again, if this is your first time tracking your spending give yourself time to use this budget tracker without judgement of your spending. After a few months start asking yourself – does spending on XYZ align with my goals? Then use the tracker monthly to keep yourself honest. Repeating this cycle monthly is how I’ve been able to afford ski trips and rental properties and confidently skip the designer shoes and doordash orders without feeling deprived.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed and want a bigger personal finance picture, I highly recommend this personal finance book.
Happy budgeting! Remember – the best time to start was yesterday. The next best time is now.
xx,
Claire
