How to Use the Monthly Budget Spreadsheet

Here’s all the info you need to get started using the Monthly Budget Spreadsheet. How to’s, tips & tricks and the answers to some frequently asked questions too.

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The video below will give you all the information you need to get started with the Monthly Budget Spreadsheet so if you’d rather watch than read, why not dive straight in and hit play.

Getting Started

IMPORTANT:

We know you’ll be keen to dive right in and start using the spreadsheet but before you do please be aware that you should only enter text and numbers in the shaded cells. All the white cells contain formulae so it’s important that you don’t change those otherwise the sheet may stop working. We’ve protected the sheet as much as possible so if you do accidentally change something you shouldn’t a warning will pop up, giving you the chance to cancel your changes.

Ok, now you’ve read that you can keep going with the Steps below.

Budgeting

  • On the ‘Standard’ tab, find the section called ‘Setup’

    You’ll see a month dropdown - click this and choose the month you’re working on.

    Now in the currency cell, enter your local currency symbol. When you do, you’ll notice that whenever you enter an amount the currency symbol will automatically appear next to it. So you don’t have to worry about any special formatting, the sheet does it for you.

  • You’ll be using the sheet month after month and it’s likely that your income and outgoings don’t change that much. So the best way to start is to enter your income and outgoings on the tab called ‘Standard’.

    Then make a copy of that sheet (right click on the tab and choose ‘Duplicate’) and name the tab - for example ‘January’.

    When the next month comes around, just duplicate the ‘Standard’ tab again and rename the duplicate to the next month - for example ‘February’

    As you can see, the ‘Standard’ sheet will save you time each month since you won’t have to enter the standard stuff like your usual income, usual bills and usual savings budgets

  • Find the green Income section and enter a short description for each item of income you’re expecting in the month, for example your salary, perhaps a bonus.

    Next to each item, enter the amount you’re expecting to receive in the Budget column.

    Next, find the Savings section and do the same thing. You’ll notice in this section we’ve included a starting balance too so you can begin to keep track of your savings pots.

  • In the Regular Bills section, enter a short descrption of the item. We’ve put a few in there to get you started but you can change them as necessary.

    Against each item, enter the day of the month the bill is due. If there’s no fixed date, just enter a number between 1 and 28. As you enter the days of the month you’ll notice that the Regular Bills Calendar will start to show you visually which bill are due on each day of the month.

    Now enter budget amounts in the Budget column against each bill. As you do that, notice that the bills calendar graph starts to show you the outgoing cashflow across the month.

    Notice the square tick-boxes next to each bill? Tick these when you’ve paid each bill (and enter the actual amount of the bill). The corresponding bill will be marked off on the calendar and you’ll see the graph update itself with your actual spending across the month.

  • In the Ad-hoc Spending Budget section, enter a short name for each category that you’ll spend money on in the month.

    We’ve put a few suggested items in the sheet already for you, but you can change them as appropriate.

    One thing to be aware of is that the categories you enter here are used to show in the dropdowns in the actual Ad-hoc Spending section. You’ll use that section to keep track of your actual spending throughout the month.

    Next to each Ad-hoc Spending Budget category, enter the amount you think you’ll spend in the month.

    It’s important to keep track of the ‘Remaining to spend’ number that sits above the Income section. Make sure that this doesn’t fall below zero! The green bar above that number is a visual representation of how much you’ve yet to allocate based on your income.

  • The Debt Budget section is where you enter your debt items.

    Similar to the Savings section, we’ve included a starting balance here too.

    Enter a short name for each debt item, for example ‘Visa card’, together with the starting balance each item. Enter these as positive numbers, not negative!

    Against each item, enter the budget amounts that you’re expecting to pay towards the debt in the month.

Tracking spending against budget

  • As the month goes by you should enter actual amounts against each of your income, savings, bills and debt payments. By doing so, you’ll see whether you’re within the budget you allocated or if you’ve exceeded it.

    In each section (eg Income, Regular Bills and so on) you’ll see an Actual column - this is where you enter the actual amounts. Remember, only enter values in the grey shaded cells.

    You’ll notice that the Ad-hoc Spending section has white cells for th actual amounts. That’s because it represents a summary of your spending based on your budget categories.

    To enter actual ad-hoc spending, scroll down the sheet to row 100. There you’ll find the Ad-hoc Spending section. This is where you can enter your spending as you go through the month. Just put a short description in the Item column, choose the budget category from the dropdown and enter the amount.

    IMPORTANT: The dropdown is automatically populated from the Ad-hoc Spending Budget section. If you find that you want to record some spending for which there’s no category, just head back to the Ad-hoc Spending Budget section and put a new entry for that category of spending. You could leave the budget at zero if it’s un-budgeted spending.

  • As you enter actual amounts across the spreadsheet it will automatically calculate how much left you can spend. This is shown as the Remaining to Spend amount in the Spending vs Budget section.

    In the same section, you’ll see the graph of budgets by category and actual spending in those categories.

    Whenever your spending goes above budget (or below, in the case of savings and debt) a warning symbol will appear next to the relevant item. These symbols will alert you to issues which might need to be further investigated.

  • In the Bills & Spending Breakdown section, you’ll see a pie chart showing how your actual spending is broken down into each spending category.

    If any of the labels is missing, click the pie chart and hover your mouse over the unlabelled pie slice - you’ll see a popup with the details.

  • Whilst you were entering your regular bills in the Regular Bills section, you may have noticed the items being populated on the Regular Bills Calendar (if you can’t see that, scroll right on the spreadsheet!).

    The calendar is automatically created from the days of the month you specify each regular bill is due.

    Above the calendar you’ll also see a day-by-day graph of amounts due and paid (if the bill it ticked as paid).

    The Regular Bills Calendar is there just for you to view. If you want to change the day when a bill is due or mark a bill as paid, do that in the Regular Bills section and NOT on the calendar. The calendar will automatically update itself.