Budgeting is good for you, but often we don’t do it. There are many reasons why most budgets fail, but a big culprit is that we often try to make budgeting much more complicated than it needs to be.
Some exercise is better than none. And a simple budget is better than none.
Whether you are just learning to budget or you don’t need or want all the bells and whistles of fancy software or online budgeting tools, I give you my Really Simple Budget Worksheet.
What is the Really Simple Budget Worksheet?
The Really Simple Budget Worksheet is a one page printable budget worksheet that asks for your monthly income and monthly expenses grouped into just a handful of categories. Unlike some budget tools, this worksheet doesn’t need to know how much you spend on coffee in the morning, beers at the bar, fast food lunches and fine dining. It groups them as dining, travel and entertainment.
Although there is some value in seeing how much your coffee or lunch habits add up to every month, it takes a lot of time to track—time most of us would rather spend in other ways. The Really Simple Budget Worksheet lets you figure out a budget in a few minutes and get on with life.
The worksheet is available as a PDF (for printing) and Microsoft Excel:
- Download the Really Simple Budget Worksheet in Adobe PDF
- Use the Really Simple Budget Worksheet in Google Sheets*
*To edit the spreadsheet version, go to “File”, then select “Make a copy”. This will allow you to save a copy of the spreadsheet that you can edit. Clicking “request access” won’t work.
More budgeting options
Admittedly, this budget worksheet might be a big too simple. I got you.
The original Money Under 30 free budget spreadsheet. Available for Google Sheets or as a Microsoft Excel download, I created this free budget spreadsheet to allow users to customize categories and track actual vs budgeted spending. This spreadsheet also incorporates the 50/30/20 budgeting method in which you aim to spend 50% of your income on “needs”, 30% on “wants” before saving 20%.
My list of the best budgeting apps. If you’re looking for even more, this list contains a half-dozen or so budgeting apps — some free, some paid — that can take your financial planning to the next level.
