My budget and money tracking spreadsheet – Google Sheets

Content

• Improve your money management with this annual budget and money management tracking spreadsheet
• Let’s get control of our money
• Benefits and reasons why money management is essential
• Watch my explanation and instruction’s video on Youtube
• Features of my annual budget and money tracking spreadsheet
• Where can I get the spreadsheet

Improve your money management – Annual budget and money tracking spreadsheet

Money management through using an easy-to-use budget, money and account tracking spreadsheet, is crucial for our financial future.

And a good financial future isn’t about how much money you make – it’s about how you manage and plan your money. Good basic money management techniques will help you to get your finances in order, no matter the level of your income.

I am convinced that everyone can become a great money manager. It is also wrong to think that only rich people with a lot of money can be good with money or need to manage their money. 

Lots of people who make a decent amount of money but are not practising money management as often as they should, tend to simply spend money without any specific reason, or purpose. Money comes in and it goes out, while their financial situation remains stagnant and they never move forward to the ultimate financial goal, financial freedom.

Very often people are caught up in their daily life so much that they find it too much, too difficult or too hard to manage their money on a regular basis. Sometimes people simply don’t realise the impact good financial management can have on their life and don’t manage and plan their money at all.

It is hard to arrive at financial freedom without a clear roadmap that guides us. Practising basic money management means having a plan, reflecting about our current and future income and expenses and this will help us automatically to be a better money manager.

All we need for good money management is regular management. Through money management, we all can learn financial practices that help us accumulate wealth and security, while understanding the key to preserving that wealth. 

The bottom line to be succesful in everything we do, is that we need to know where we are heading. This is no different for money.

Without a clear objective, it is very probable that you collect an income every month and you’re often spending that money without any clear overview and sometimes without a clear reason because you have no set purpose. This is an expensive mistake.

Wealth is not only possible by just making a lot of money. Many people don’t really understand this. I know that this is never taught in school and most people have never been told and explained that good money management leads to money accumulation and wealth. 

The sooner people realise that spending all or most of their money, no matter how much it is, and that they’re never going to be wealthy without systematically accumulating it, the better.

Let’s get control of our money

This is why it is paramount that we find a way to determine where our money is going. We need to get control of our money!

The best way to do this is to track how much money we have, to track our income and most importantly track our outgoing money, to see where we are spending it. 

Over the years I have created a financial spreadsheet that I have adapted and improved, to make it as easy-to-use as possible for me, specifically for this purpose. 

Managing my money with an easy-to-use spreadsheet allows me to track my monthly income, savings, and expenses with handy, easy-to-understand charts. 

And now I am making this spreadsheet in Google Sheets available for all people who have decided to start managing their money properly.

This new fully customised spreadsheet for Google Sheets is a ready-for-use, digital download :

• Available for purchase in our shop – immediate download (read article until end to pick up your gift) : https://www.tradingoptionscashflow.com/product/2023-annual-budgeting-and-money-tracking-spreadsheet-google-sheets/
• Available for purchase via our Etsyshop : https://www.etsy.com/listing/1384251213/2023-annual-budgeting-and-money-tracking

Before going deeper into the features of the spreadsheet itself, let me resume why using such a handy spreadsheet is beneficial and essential.

Benefits and reasons why money management is essential

Money management is one of the most important parts of your financial life. And it is really not hard to do if you use a good budget, money and account tracking tool.

Making an annual budget plan, tracking and handling your income, your expenses and bills, will help you reach your financial goals, get out of debt, build your savings and plan your investments.

Basic money management : 

• puts you in control of your money, which helps you avoid stress and feel more secure
• makes you handle all of your finances, from budgeting to investing, to saving and setting goals.
• allows you to understand your current financial situation.
• helps you to set personal priorities and finance, savings and investment goals.
• helps to create and stick to a budget.
• makes you plan for emergency savings and funds.
• triggers you to work towards your financial freedom
• makes you plan and save for retirement.
• creates a good overview for paying off debt.
• helps us to gain financial insight and keep a good overview through the regular progress reports.

Features of my annual budget and money tracking spreadsheet

I realise that an easy-to-use managing money worksheet is essential for everyone who is serious about managing their wealth. The spreadsheet should facilitate the work and entering data as easy and quick as possible.

There are 10 spreadsheet tabs working together to make managing money as easy and quick as possible. Once the initial setup to your personal liking and situation has been done, the regular and periodic update and follow-up is really easy.

Here is a short description and the use of each of the 10 spreadsheet tabs. These chapters are ordered in a logical way as I would suggest for you to use and personalise the spreadsheet.

You can also watch my explanation and instruction’s video on Youtube:

The income and expense category Tabs

These two tabs contain supporting information, that is used in the budget, the transactions and the reports tabs. The data of the income category and the expense categories allows to make quick selections via drop-downs and avoids all data entry repetition.

When starting a new spreadsheet I would advise that you start with checking and adapting the data in both tabs (income and expenses categories) to your personal situation, language if you want and to your liking. The current information in these fields is applicable to my personal situation and I believe will fit to most people.

There are 50 lines predefined for the income categories. I have hidden most of the empty fields to keep an easy overview.

There are 124 lines predefined for the expense categories. I have also hidden most of the empty fields to keep an easy overview.

Simply adapt the different categories and add a description if needed. The data entered in these fields will automatically be used the other spreadsheet tabs.

The Budget Entry Tab

The first basic step to manage our money in a good way is to create a good overview. We do this by drafting our annual and monthly budget by entering all known income we will receive and expenses we will have to make over a complete year. To do this collect all info, bills, and you are ready to start entering.

Imagine that we create the spreadsheet for the family John and Mary Wayne for 2023. They both a have a job and John earns also Job commissions every 3 months.

In that case, for John’s salary we select the monthly periodicity and over a complete budgetary year the first salary payment occurs in January, and I will enter the amount of 1600 dollars. For Mary’s salary, which is also paid every month, with the first payment in January, I enter the salary amount of 1750 dollars. John has an extra planned Job commission of usually 100 dollars that he gets paid every three months with the first time in March.

Let’s leave the accounts info empty at this moment, because we haven’t created any accounts yet. We will start by creating the annual budget first for John and Mary, the accounts on which the income is received can be selected later.

You will notice that the required fields for entering an income category are the amount, periodicity and the month of first payment. This is what it will look like in the spreadsheet:

All entries of income and expenses created in the budget entry tab will be used to create the budget overview in the budget tab. So if you take a quick look at the budget tab this should be the result:

Next step is to enter all known or expected and estimated expenses that are to be paid over the the course of the year, applying the same system as for income. Also the amount, the periodicity and the month of the first payment are mandatory fields. They are marked in red to indicate you should fill in these fields.

In this example I add the following expenses for John and Mary (for this explanation I have selected a couple of the most current expenses people have):

Also the entered expenses are used in the annual budget overview, and adjust the numbers of the annual and monthly budget.

On top of the budget tab, you can always track see the monthly planned budget situation, the planned year totals and the monthly average. These numbers will give us an immediate idea wether we have more planned expenses than planned income and in which months.

In this imaginary example, John and Mary, have a green situation every month (of course not all expenses most people have are entered in the Budget Entry tab). But I am sure you get the idea of the workflow.

The Annual Budget Tab

So the annual budget table shows our planned budget each month. In this tab, you should not change anything except the year the budget is planned for (field in C4). The dates, the number of days in a month and all the numbers are calculated automatically, based on our budget entry information.

Having a clear view of our annual income and expenses is the first but MAYOR step of managing our money efficiently! This overview will show me where and when our expenses exceed our income and will trigger us to prepare for these temporary negative income-expense situation by planning some savings ahead.

It will also show what our biggest expenses are and how and where possibilities of savings exist. The budgeted amounts and categories will be visible now too in the monthly reports tab. You can take a peek but more on this tab later.

The Accounts Tab

Next step after making a budget is following up on the financial transactions you make for all the planned income and planned expenses. Tracking our payments from our bank accounts, will allow us to have a good overview of our financial situation at all times. The aim here is not to register every dollar we spend but to track those income and expenses we have budgeted for. I will show later how I balance my accounts for the expenses or income that I have not budgeted for.

We start by creating our financial accounts. Imagine, that in our example, John and Mary have bank accounts opened at Bank XYZ. They have a checking account and two saving account (one for short-term saving and a second for long term saving).

Let’s create these accounts in the accounts Tab by entering the white fields (the grey coloured fields are calculated fields and should not be changed at any time!). The field goal is added to allow us to indicate for example a specific goal for the amount on that account. You can use it as you like.

The drop-down in the accounts type field allows for the most usual types of accounts. You can add or change extra types in the Back End Fields tab if you like.

Now that the accounts are selected, you can add the account selection to the income and expense entry. The created accounts will appear now as drop-down selections.

The Transactions Tab

The actual registration of income or expense transactions in the spreadsheet are made in the Transactions tab. This tab will hold the data of all the transasctions you want to track. The data comprises : the date, the used account, the payee, the category of the transaction (income and expense categories), credit (credit is when you add an incoming payment the account) or debit (debit out is when you make an outgoing payment from that account and the amount is decreased). The Account balance is automatically calculated and should not be changed. The field cleared is for future use.

Pay attention that there are hidden fields that serve a purpose for the calculation of the spreadsheet and columns should not be deleted in the spreadsheet.

Besides the income and expenses categories , there is a third category called “Transaction Category”, especially used for either creating a beginning balance, for recording specific transfers between accounts or for recording adjustments to the account.

I advise that for every account created you also add the starting balance. In our example of John and Mary, I have created 3 beginning balances for the three accounts. When you record a new transaction by selecting the account, you will notice the required red-coloured fields (besides the amount) are the date, the payee and the category.

In this spreadsheet we always add to the next line. When require you need to insert new rows and copy one of the rows completely onto the inserted rows to copy all the formulas.

In this example I will add a couple of income and expense transactions made by John and Mary in the month of January :

Notice that a saving transfer is recorded in two steps, as an expense of the checking account and as an incoming transfer of the savings account. It is important to create internal transfers this way in order to keep the balancing and the monthly reporting correct.

Also notice that there are two unplanned transactions recorded : the job tips income of 120 dollars from Mary and an unplanned expense of 100 dollars (there was no clothing budgeted in January).

Whenever you need to adjust the balance of an account, for whatever reason, you must use the category adjustment to keep also the reporting correct.

These transactions will now be reflected in the monthly report.

The Monthly Reports Tab

The monthly report allows you to know exactly how much you’re spending versus what you have budgeted for.

In this tab you can select the year and the month.

All data will be automatically adapted to the selected period. Pay attention to not change any other field.

You can see and follow the comparison of the planned and actual income and expenses. And you have an overview of the unplanned income and expenses.

The Instructions Tab

The spreadsheet is completed by an extensive Instructions Tab. Although most users, will quickly find their way, I do advise to have a look at our YouTube instruction video that is available for this spreadsheet.

The Back End fields Tabs

The back end field tabs serve to feed the other tab spreadsheets with data to make these spreadsheet work easier, for example with drop-downs or pre-determined possibilities.

Comments or suggestions

Please feel free to give me your thoughts and suggestions for improvement about my annual budgeting and money tracking spreadsheet in the comment section below.

Here are the links again for purchasing and immediate download:

• Available for purchase in our shop : https://www.tradingoptionscashflow.com/product/2023-annual-budget-and-money-tracking-spreadsheet-google-sheets/
• Available for purchase via our Etsyshop : https://www.etsy.com/listing/1384251213/2023-annual-budget-and-money-tracking

For those who read this article until the end, my gift to you is this coupon code : 20TOCF2023. The first 25 people (!) using this coupon code will get a 20% discount on the spreadsheet in our shop : https://www.tradingoptionscashflow.com/product/2023-annual-budget-and-money-tracking-spreadsheet-google-sheets/

Cheers