Free download

Budget spreadsheet template

A simple monthly budget for Excel and Google Sheets: plan each category, log what you spend, and see what is left. Free, no email required.

Download for Excel or Google Sheets (.xlsx) Transactions only (.csv)

What is in it

  • Budget

    Your take-home pay, a planned amount per category (prefilled with a 50/30/20 split of $4,000), what you have spent and what is left, plus how much you are saving.

  • Transactions

    One row per purchase or paycheck, with a category dropdown. The Budget sheet adds them up for you.

  • How to use

    The steps below, inside the file, including how to open it in Google Sheets.

How to use it

  1. Type your take-home pay and a planned amount for each category on the Budget sheet. Not sure what to plan? Try the budget calculator first.
  2. Each time you spend, add a row on the Transactions sheet: date, description, category and amount (Money out for spending, Money in for pay or refunds).
  3. Spent and Left update on their own. A red Left means a category is over its plan.
  4. At the end of the month, save a copy, clear the Transactions rows and start the next month with the same plan.

Google Sheets: open sheets.google.com, then File → Import → Upload, and pick the .xlsx file. The formulas work there too.

When the spreadsheet gets tedious

Spreadsheets are great for planning and painful on a phone at the checkout. BudgetVault is a free budget app that does the same job in two taps: no account, no bank login, and your numbers stay on your device. You do not lose what you typed: save the Transactions sheet as CSV and import it in BudgetVault (Settings → Import a CSV file). The columns are already in a format it reads.

Import your sheet into BudgetVault See the app with sample data

Compare the two approaches in BudgetVault vs Excel, or read how to create a realistic monthly budget.