Making a budget is an important step in achieving your financial objectives. It is practically hard to determine where you are financially without a budget. A budget gives you complete control over your money and allows you to manage your monthly income, expenditures, savings, and investments.
Using a budget template is one of the simplest methods to begin better managing your money and reaching your financial objectives.
It’s time to put an end to the financial stress, forget about cash advance apps and other loans, and reclaim control. To keep track of your finances, all you need is a basic budget template, tracker, or spreadsheet.
Fortunately, there are several free budget templates and financial tools accessible for your use.
So, which budget templates, tools, and applications should you use? Let’s take a deeper look at our top choices.
What Exactly is a Budget Template?
A budget template allows you to accurately monitor your monthly income and spending, allowing you to conveniently manage your money and know where your money is going each month.
Budget templates might be printed, digital, or even as a simple mobile app.
Your budget will reveal your spending patterns over time. This will help you to identify areas where you are squandering money and create better future plans and it is very important.
In 2021, not understanding how to handle one’s own affairs and lacking financial literacy came at a great cost. The NFEC conducted a poll in which American individuals were asked to estimate how much money they had lost owing to a lack of financial awareness over the previous year.
Lack of financial literacy cost Americans a total of more than $352 billion in 2021, if we extrapolate the findings to include all of the roughly 254 million people who reside in the U.S.
In order not to repeat the mistakes of many Americans, you need to start with the first postulate of financial literacy – planning.
Budgeting Templates and Apps
Budgeting Templates for Google Sheets
If you are a data-driven person, a Google Sheet budget template might be an excellent alternative. You will have to manually input all of your expenditure information. This might include keeping receipts each month or going through your bank statements if you usually spend with a credit card.
Overall, utilizing a Google Sheets budget template to monitor your budgeting efforts is not a particularly visible approach to measuring your progress. The stats, on the other hand, do not lie. You’ll be able to monitor what you’re spending and create strategies to cut down.
Although inputting data takes effort, it might help you properly understand your spending habits. Every purchase will compel you to relive it as you type it into your budget spreadsheet.
It is quite simple, but it does enable you to monitor your monthly expenditures. If you want to use this sheet, you must first request access to the sheet and then make a duplicate of it. You’ll be able to make modifications and manage your budget in your own account after generating a copy.
If you don’t like the free budgeting templates, you may create your own using Google Sheets.
Vertex42 Spreadsheets
Vertex42 offers over a dozen free budget and personal financial spreadsheets that are compatible with Microsoft Excel as well as LibreOffice Calc, Apache OpenOffice Calc, and Google Sheets.
Monthly and annual home and personal budgets, Christmas gift budgets, company budgets, wedding budgets, and the Money Management Spreadsheet for Kids are all available.
The Money Management Template is an excellent Excel or Calc spreadsheet that does not need the use of macros for individuals who wish to monitor spending against a budget.
Many of these spreadsheets contain a demonstration video or lesson, making them more appealing to individuals who are unfamiliar with spreadsheets.
Budget Template for Microsoft Excel
Excel has budgeting templates that are remarkably similar to those found in Google Sheets. You may, however, have to pay for them. If you don’t already have Microsoft 365, you’ll have to pay for Excel’s budgeting templates.
The template, like Google Sheets, requires you to fill in the data by hand. It may take some time to adjust to the new format. However, it might be a useful tool for considering where your money is going each month.
If you want to use Excel but don’t want to pay for the premium version, try creating your own.
Tiller Money
Tiller Money provides an alternative to entering your own financial data into a budget spreadsheet. The website simplifies your financial accounts and automatically updates a budget template in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel with your daily spending, income, and balances. This takes the labor out of monitoring your funds, which is a barrier that many individuals experience when attempting to get financial management.
You may structure the budget to match your specific requirements by creating your own budget spreadsheet or using an existing template. Tiller Money costs $79 per year after a free 30-day trial. Tiller also provides a non-automated budgeting template for free.
Mint (App)
Mint provides a budgeting guide to help you manage your finances while on the road. The greatest thing is that it is entirely free!
Mint will allow you to simply create a budget based on your spending habits. The program is intended to assist you in creating and managing a budget over time. You’ll get access to long-term statistics as well as a daily balance function that will alert you if you’re on the verge of running out of cash.
Personal Capital
When your finances get more sophisticated, with several investment accounts and income sources, a simple budgeting template may not be sufficient to improve your money management. Personal Capital may be a better option for your budgeting requirements in this scenario.
Connect all of your bank accounts with its customized dashboard to receive a complete view of your finances. This dashboard allows you to track your net worth as well as your spending, investments, savings, and other objectives.
Conclusion
It’s simple to manage your funds with the many online and downloadable budget spreadsheets, templates, and applications accessible. These tools may help you save for an upcoming family event, a new company, or a college degree, in addition to budgeting for ordinary, everyday spending.
As you gain experience with spreadsheets, you will be able to make visualizations that reflect your spending, saving, and earning patterns. Spreadsheets, while giving you control over your funds, make personal finance planning, monitoring, and viewing much easier than in the past.
