If you’re looking for a quick and easy budgeting tool, the Google Sheets budget template is a great option to track your daily expenses.
For the past five years, I’ve used this free budgeting spreadsheet to keep my spending under control.
Google Sheets Budget Template: Step-by-Step Guide
This article and the video below will walk you step-by-step through the process of creating a budget with Google Sheets, including my best tips to customize the template.
Table of Contents:
- Locate and Open the Google Sheets Monthly Budget Template
- Start With a Clean Slate
- Customize a Sample Monthly Budget
- Make a Copy of the Sample Budget and Plan Your Spending
- Track Your Expenses Throughout the Month
1. Locate and Open the Google Sheets Monthly Budget Template
The first step is to find the Google Sheets budget template. When you open Google Sheets from a computer, look for the “Monthly Budget” spreadsheet located near the top of the screen.
If you don’t see a thumbnail for it, click on “Template Gallery” and find it under “Personal.”
2. Start With a Clean Slate
To start with a clean slate, you need to give the budget template a new name.
In the upper-left corner, change the name of the spreadsheet from “Monthly budget” to “SAMPLE BUDGET TO COPY EVERY MONTH.”
You’ll understand why that’s important later on in this article.
Next, you want to delete sample amounts on the Summary and Transactions spreadsheets. Warning: If you don’t follow the instructions below, it may break the formulas in the spreadsheet.
Transactions Spreadsheet
Let’s begin with the Transactions spreadsheet. You can access it by clicking on the Transactions tab at the bottom of the screen.
To delete the sample expenses for Rent and Paycheck, click on the number 5 to select that entire row. Then, click on Delete Values from the Edit drop-down menu.
Next, scroll down to the bottom of the Transactions spreadsheet. You’ll see that it ends with row 33. That will be a problem if you have more than 33 transactions in a month, so click “Add 1000 more rows at bottom” to avoid any issues.
Now, you’ll have 1,033 rows for transactions.
Summary Spreadsheet
Once you’ve made those changes, flip back to the Summary spreadsheet. To start with a clean slate, adjust the starting balance in cell L8 from $1,000 to $0.
Then, zero out the sample Home (cell D31) and Paycheck (cell J29) amounts shown in the shaded Planned column.
The Summary spreadsheet ends with row 44. If you think that you may need additional expense categories, click “Add 1000 more rows at bottom” just like you did on the Transactions spreadsheet.
You’ll get a pop-up that warns about editing the spreadsheet, but go ahead and click OK.
3. Customize a Sample Monthly Budget
The third step is to customize your sample monthly budget.
Before you adjust the expense categories on the Summary spreadsheet, I recommend that you add a third spreadsheet for Fixed Expenses.
The purpose of this additional spreadsheet is to separate your fixed and variable expenses. Let me explain how I do it.
In the lower-left corner, click to plus sign for “Add Sheet” and change the tab name to Fixed Expenses. Then, list your fixed expenses and how much you spend on them every month.
Fixed expenses include things like your rent/mortgage, cell phone bill, TV bill, utilities, subscriptions and insurance payments. You may also want to include irregular expenses in this worksheet.
Total the fixed expenses and flip back over to the Summary spreadsheet.
Next, change the first line on the expenses column from Food to Fixed Expenses and enter the total from the Fixed Expenses spreadsheet in the Planned column.
Now, all of those fixed expenses take up only one line on the Summary spreadsheet.
This is important because it allows you to focus more on the variable or flexible spending categories that have a greater impact on your day-to-day spending.
Next, you can customize your categories based on your household’s spending.
You can safely change the shaded expense and income categories on the Summary spreadsheet through line 41, but don’t fill in the Planned column for your expense categories (except Fixed Expenses) just yet. That’s later.
If you need help determining your budget categories, review your recent credit card and bank statements.
How to Add More Custom Categories to Google Sheets Budget Template
If you don’t need additional rows of expenses beyond line 41, you can skip ahead to the next step at this point.
But if you do want to add extra rows or think you may need to in the future, there’s a specific way to do it to avoid messing up the formulas.
Let me explain what you need to do.
First, determine the number of expense categories that you want to add. It doesn’t hurt to have extra blank rows, so I suggest that you add 5 to 10 rows even if you won’t use them all.
Next, follow these steps:
Go to the last row of the expense column (Custom category 3, line 41) and highlight the cells you want to duplicate.
Drag down using the blue handle to add the desired number of rows. I added nine rows, so I stopped on row 50.
This is what I suggest that you do — stop at row 50.
Click OK when prompted with a pop-up warning message to continue.
Rename the new categories anything you want.
After that, jot down the last row that you created. In the sample above, it’s row 50 — “Custom category 12.”
Flip over to the Transactions spreadsheet to continue.
From this spreadsheet, navigate to the category drop-down.
You may notice that not all of the new budget categories are reflected.
Here’s how to fix that:
Highlight the first cell under Category on the Expenses side (Row 5, Column E).
From the Data menu, select Data validation.
To the right, it should say Data validation rules. Select “Value contains one from range E5:E1033.”
In the Criteria Summary field, click on the “Select data range” icon next to the =Summary!$B$27:$C$44 formula.
Change the last two numbers of the formula to match the number of your last row from the Summary spreadsheet. (That would be 50 from the example.) Select OK.
Click Done at the bottom of the “Data validation rules” screen.
Then, confirm that all of your expense categories now appear in the drop-down on the Transactions tab.
4. Make a Copy of the Sample Budget and Plan Your Spending
Now that you’ve customized the sample monthly budget, the fourth step is to make a copy of it to save the work that you’ve done so far and actually start budgeting for the upcoming month.
Go to the File menu, select Make a Copy and rename the budget for the upcoming month. For example, January 2023 Budget.
I go back to the sample budget every single month to make a new copy.
All of your categories and the Fixed Expenses spreadsheet should be copied over automatically.
From here, follow these steps from the Summary spreadsheet:
- Plan spending in all of your budget categories on the Expenses side
- Estimate paychecks and other income sources on the Income side
Ideally, you want your estimated monthly income to be greater than or equal to your planned expenses.
IMPORTANT: If you need to make tweaks to your categories or the Fixed Expenses spreadsheet in the future, make those changes to the sample budget before you make a copy. This will save you time.
By creating the sample budget, you don’t need to tweak the formulas every single month.
5. Track Your Expenses Throughout the Month
The key to making this budget work is tracking your expenses throughout the month using the Transactions spreadsheet.
The first transaction that I log every month is for my fixed expenses.
I enter the total from the Fixed Expenses worksheet on the Transactions tab. This updates the Actual column for the Fixed Expenses category on the Summary spreadsheet.
After that transaction, I do most of my budgeting on the go with the Google Sheets mobile app.
From the app, I can get an overall snapshot of my spending from the Summary spreadsheet and enter transactions on the Transactions spreadsheet.
Here’s an example…
Before I go to the grocery store, I open the Google Sheets app and look at the Summary tab to see how much money I have left to spend.
In this case, I have $500 remaining in the Groceries category.
After completing my purchase, I immediately record the transaction before I leave the store.
All I do is flip over to the Transactions tab and enter the date, amount, description and category.
Then, the recent transaction is reflected when I go back to the Summary tab.
After spending $100, I now have $400 left to spend in the Groceries category for the month.
Checking in with my budget before every purchase is my secret weapon — it’s saved me a lot of money.
If I realize that I don’t have enough budgeted for something I want to buy, I either skip the purchase or move money from another budget category to cover it.
Let’s say that I have $200 budgeted for groceries and $200 for entertainment. If I’m at risk of going over my budget for groceries, I could pull $50 from the entertainment category. I would then go to the Summary tab and adjust the planned spending to reflect the new budget: $250 for groceries and $150 for entertainment. I’m not changing the overall total planned spending for the month, just the categories.
Another great thing about the Google Sheets budget template is that you can share it.
If you maintain a budget with a partner, you can both make changes to the budget from a computer, tablet or smartphone.
Final Thought
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to budgeting, but the Google Sheets budget template is a simple and powerful tool to take control of your money — and it’s 100% free.
Here are the reasons why I really like it:
- Google Sheets is free
- Monthly Budget template can be customized
- Track expenses on the go with the app
- Share your spreadsheet with a partner
- No advertisem*nts or bank information to enter
I use the Google Sheets template primarily to keep tabs on my spending. For net worth tracking, I recommend free apps like Empower.
Learn more about my 10-minute weekly money routine in this related article!
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As a seasoned financial enthusiast who has actively utilized the Google Sheets budget template for the past five years, I can attest to the effectiveness of this tool in managing daily expenses. The Google Sheets Budget Template serves as a valuable resource for maintaining financial discipline and control. Allow me to delve into the concepts presented in the article:
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Locate and Open the Google Sheets Monthly Budget Template:
- Access Google Sheets and find the "Monthly Budget" spreadsheet under "Template Gallery" in the "Personal" category.
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Start With a Clean Slate:
- Change the spreadsheet name to "SAMPLE BUDGET TO COPY EVERY MONTH."
- Delete sample amounts on the Summary and Transactions spreadsheets.
- Add extra rows to the Transactions spreadsheet to accommodate more transactions.
-
Customize a Sample Monthly Budget:
- Create a separate spreadsheet for Fixed Expenses to distinguish between fixed and variable expenses.
- List fixed expenses and their monthly amounts.
- Transfer the total fixed expenses to the Summary spreadsheet.
- Customize expense categories on the Summary spreadsheet based on household spending.
- Optionally, add custom categories beyond line 41 with careful steps to avoid formula issues.
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Make a Copy of the Sample Budget and Plan Your Spending:
- Save the customized budget by making a copy for the upcoming month (e.g., January 2023 Budget).
- Plan spending in all budget categories on the Expenses side.
- Estimate income on the Income side, aiming for it to exceed planned expenses.
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Track Your Expenses Throughout the Month:
- Utilize the Transactions spreadsheet to log expenses.
- Log fixed expenses first, updating the Summary spreadsheet.
- Use the Google Sheets mobile app for on-the-go budgeting.
- Regularly check the Summary tab to monitor remaining budget amounts.
- Adjust planned spending if needed, either skipping purchases or reallocating funds between categories.
The key takeaway is that the Google Sheets budget template is a versatile, free, and accessible tool for effective budget management. Its ability to be customized, shared, and utilized on the go makes it a powerful ally in financial planning. By diligently tracking expenses and making informed decisions based on real-time budget status, users can exercise greater control over their finances.
