My Excel Budget

Dear all,

Thanks to this site, in the past few month's I've benefited from guidance at ConsumerActionGroup, claimed a whole host of freebies and whipped my finances into a finely shaped semblance of order.

I'd like to contribute and I'm hoping that my MSE budget adaptation can be of use to some people.

There are 2 documents - (click below to open them)

Blank Budget


January Filled out / Example Budget


This is based on Martin's expert budget, and is the format which I use to keep track of my finances.

Instructions are as follows:

Fill in your budgeted totals on the first worksheet ('Budgeted Vs Real').
Then, on a regular basis, keep track of your purchases in the relevant month's worksheet. Enter the date (col A), a brief description (col , and select the relevant category (col C) for your purchase. Then enter debit amounts in Column D, credit amounts in col. E, and your rolling balance is calculated.

Don't mess around with column F, except to enter your bank balance in cell F2, the first time you use it, for the relevant month. Once you've done that, the total should calculate automatically.

As you do this, the monthly totals will be automatically generated in the first worksheet ('Budgeted Vs Real') and you can quickly see whether you are over/under budget for each month.

This workbook has really helped me to get a stranglehold on my monies, I hope it works for someone else out there. As far as I know, it hasn't been done as yet. It's far from perfect, so please post constructive criticism here too, any Excel experts are welcome to pull it to pieces.

Cheers,

Don.