Free Budget FormAs we discussed on the Personal Monthly Budget page, you must know where your money is going each month. You have to make sure that the amount of money that you spend is less than or equal to what you make. A monthly budget takes the guesswork out of this process and helps you take control of your finances. For years I kept track of our monthly budget on paper in a large ledger book, sometimes with more detail than other times. Last year I decided to try to make a spreadsheet on my computer that would simplify the budgeting process. After working the bugs out of it and using it for a few months my wife and I are real happy with it. Recently I added some color coding to some rows and columns to help you navigate your way around. Keep in mind that I am not a computer programmer. I used Microsoft Excel to make a simple spreadsheet with all of our expenditure categories that also keeps running totals so that you know how much you have left and how much you have used out of your pay. It also keeps track of your savings and totals it up for the month. This comes in handy for us since we send our savings money in to the money market once each month. To receive this free budget form, just fill out the form below to let us know you want the spreadsheet and we will e-mail it to you. Please make sure you double check your e-mail address. If you make a mistake typing in your e-mail address I will not be able to reach you. Also, if you have filled out the form and not received your free budget please try again. It wouldn't hurt for you to type in your e-mail address a second time in the large box below the country box to make sure.
When you get the spreadsheet it will have some values in it to show you how it works. Change the numbers around by clicking on their box just to get the feel of it. When you are done playing with it, select all of the values and delete them so you can start your next month and save it to your hard drive. I’ve left a sample monthly budget filled in to show you how we use it along with some extra lines. You can change the lines to anything you need. The budget is set up on a priority basis with the most important items first. Savings is at the bottom since it gets everything that is left over but it is a very important category. You need to keep saving. I make a separate spreadsheet file for each month and put them in a folder for the year. You could also make each month a separate worksheet in the same Excel file. Feel free to customize the spreadsheet any way you wish. We use different color fonts to denote where the money goes whether it is cash, stays in the checking account or to the money market. We have also denoted “book” for any item that we keep track of on our savings sheets. Experiment to find out what works best for you. Why are we providing this free budget form? The most important part of handling your money correctly is to know exactly what is coming in and going out. This monthly budget form will help you achieve this. Plus, this is no professionally designed program, just an self-made Excel spreadsheet. Nothing fancy here. If you have any questions about the free budget form feel free to contact us using the form above. Note: This Excel form works in Microsoft Works Spreadsheet on my computer, it may work on yours as well. Also to learn more about the budgeting process follow the link below to the Personal Monthly Budget Page.
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