Household Budget Template and Tutorial (Excel) 2020 Update
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- This is a tutorial describing how to use a household budgeting workbook. To download the free Excel template and/or a blank version of it for your personal use, follow the link: georgemhayward...
This is a versatile home and personal finance template with interactive components to help with tracking and managing your finances over time. It provides daily, monthly, and yearly data and can be used by individuals or households.
If you find this workbook to be helpful, please consider keeping George fueled with a cup of coffee or small donation :)
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Thank you to everyone who provided feedback on the earlier versions of this workbook! All of your suggestions were taken very seriously and I trust that this workbook has improved greatly because of your thoughtful comments and questions!
This budget workbook is DOPE... It would take me at least a week to build this out... More complicated than the 2024 budget forecast plan we built for our entire company!
Get this man a job in broadcasting, i could listen to him talk all day
I have some trouble downloading the blank version, would you happen to have a copy that I could share? Thanks!
This is a spectacular template. Thank you so much for volunteering your time to create this and explain how it works. Cheers!
Thanks for the kind words, Connor :) Glad you like it!
Hey George, I've just hit the 5 year mark of using your template and it has been a great help understanding my finances and goals. I've made a few tweaks to mine, but this is an incredible tool. Can't thank you enough.
Hey Daniel, I'm just starting to use this template to get a handle of my personal finances. Out of curiosity, are there any tweaks you've made that you'd recommend?
@@vaughnsmith5337 Besides a cosmetic overhaul (not necessary but being a graphic designer I couldn't help myself 😅), I added a few additional tabs. Most of this is information you'll already be plugging in other tabs so if it's overwhelming, stick with George's.
1. Subscriptions tab - (streaming TV, music, gym, insurance, cell phone etc.) It's modeled after the Expenses tab and includes columns for First bill, Duration, Place, Monthly Price, PMT, Account, Expense, Cycle, Nec/Lux, and Explanation. It's a great resource to know what I'm still subscribed to and should cancel but also know upcoming bills and watch for price increases etc.
2. Year in Review - (each year has a tab to reference). Rows are the categories, columns are months. First block is projected (I fill this out in December year prior referencing the summary tab and previous years then adjusting), then Actual (I fill this out each month--it pulls the data straight from the Expenses tab) then Difference (subtracts the two). It's a great way to see how far off I was.
I have a whole separate Excel document for keeping track of work expenses/charitable donations etc. but you could add a column (or an option under Nec/Lux that's "Work Expenses") in Expenses to track that.
I also have a Budget Pie tab and a way to round up each purchase similar to the Acorns feature for savings, but those are just personal things.
@@danielharmon15 Thank you for the suggestions! 😁
This is to date the best template I found so far. I was browsing and watching several videos on how to create the type of Budget you created here and am glad I found you. I am gonna follow your videos to make one of my own and probably adapt some of my personal criteria (debt, incomes, etc) to it. Thanks.
Thanks for the kind words, Carlos! Glad you like it, and good luck! :)
More than what I was looking for. Thank you for all that you did George! You have no idea how easy and organized you've made it for me. Thanks a lot for your time and patience.
Thanks for the kind words, Deepika! So glad you like it! :)
THIS TEMPLATE IS AWESOME! I'm using it to mentor a teenager right now. I've been using it for a good while now myself too.
Thank you very much for this spreadsheet. I know this took a lot of time to develop but thank you for creating it and giving it away for free.
As commented below, a spectacular workbook indeed and like others I salute your unselfish sharing of it with us, as well as the unfussy, concise and deliberate explanations that accompany it.
Finally I found you .Exactly what I needed .It was more than I expected .
Thank you for the excellent work George!
Thank you for creating these spreadsheets and accompanying videos, and for making them all available to others.
No problem! Thanks for the kind words :) So glad you found the template and video helpful.
Finding this video in 2021 and am so excited to use this template. Thank you.
Awesome! Glad you like it, and good luck! :)
George doing the lords work!! Thanks bud!
2022 and glad I found this! Going to give it a try.❤️
THANK FOR THE BUDGETING BASICS I PLAN TO USE THEM FOR MY NEW APARTMENT THAT IM RENTING
Great excel and lots of work done!! Thank you very much and God bless.
THANK YOU GEORGE! Great stuff here and I hope I can use it. I say that because it seems a bit donting. I created my own Spread Sheet and have used it for the past few years but I feel like I keep adding to it and now it seems a bit crazy. So I plan on using yours. Happy New Year 2024
Thank you George. I appreciate the effort you put into the template and made available for download.
Thank you so much. Great template and it is free. lol. You don't have to charge people for everything.
Thanks for the kind words! I feel the same way about keeping it free...definitely want to help people first and foremost.
George, all I have to say is thank you. This is amazing. I too will follow your vids now.
Hi Marco! Thanks so much for the kind words :) Good luck!
Thank you George. Perfect format, easy to use and complete. Great contribution!
Thanks for the kind words, Benjamin! Good luck!
So a good and kind man. God bless you! Thanks!
Hi George, just located your Budget Workbook and I am looking forward to getting my financial house in order this year. I'm only one month behind and this workbook appears to be just what I'm looking for. One stop shop for all financials. Many thanks!
No problem! Glad you like it, and good luck! :)
Nice Work!! You have an amazing grasp of Excel, its efficiencies and how to make it look great, which is no easy feat.
Thanks for the kind words, Dan! :)
@@georgemhayward Any advice on extracting monthly averages by category? Pivot table with slicer would be cool.
Hello George, Thanks very much for making your workbook downloadable to us(the public). It is super well laid out and i have been looking around the net for a while for something just like this. For what its work i super appreciate it. have a good day! kris from california!
Thanks for the kind words, Kris! :) Best wishes in the new year.
This is a great template and will definitely help me plan for college budgeting :) Thank you George
Sean! Great to hear from you! Thanks for commenting on here, and good luck!
Great video! Helped our family a ton. Thanks!
Thank you! So glad to hear. Good luck!
RESPECT, You are Philanthropist
Hi George, I just came across your video. I have been looking for a simple way to budget digitally. My last digital budget was on a floppy disc. This is by far a very close replication of the one I had on floppy. Thank you so very much for sharing your knowledge about how to use it.
Hi Tonya! I'm so glad this looks useful to you. Thanks for the comment and good luck! :)
This is great! Thank you so much for taking the time out to make this and share it with us.
Hi George. I have recently been widowed and am trying to get to grips with our budgetting. My husband was very careful with money and used spreadsheets all the time. I stumbled upon your video and am very happy to say it has answered all my questions about home budgetting. I was also stuck on the #NA problem and could not work out where it came from. I see you are using pivot tables. A video from you about naming them and how they interact with the tables would be great. (I know there are videos by others on this subject, but you are so great at explaining). Thank you!
Hi Ginny! Thanks for your comment, and I'm sorry for the slow response (we have a newborn!). I'm sorry to hear about your husband, as well. That sounds really difficult. Do you still have the same problem with the template? If so, I'm happy to help if you could provide some details as to what is going on. I do plan to make more videos soon! I just finished a graduate program and we had a baby, so I'm a bit behind on things, but I should be back to a routine soon.
George Hayward Thank you for your good wishes. I understand how much time baby & work are taking up at the moment -been there too!
I am very slowly getting to grips with your template. The Schedule which feeds the graphs is the one giving me the most aggravation now- not to worry. I am learning so much. But look forward when you can explain that one too? Hope lockdown is not too hard for you & family. I miss getting out & about as am one of the ‘vulnerables’ 😘
@@ginnyjones2937 We certainly miss getting out, too! Definitely tough times. Happy to explain - what are you curious about with the graphs?
Hi George, Thank you for the video and template. I definitely intend to download it and folllow the rest of your videos. And congratulations on bambino and thanks for keeping this all ticking over. Well done you.My situation is what they would call in SINGAPORE the “same, same but different “ situation to Ginny’s. My condolences Ginny. I too have lost my husband who insisted on handling all our finances mainly trying to lighten my load as I am disabled. The DIFFERENT in my situation is that my husband was obviously terrible with money and got us into real trouble. I need to get my finances back on track asap and being disabled siting at a desk entering data is very difficult for me. I hate to admit it but I also have difficulty with memory and concentration due to severe pain and medications. Am I aiming too high with your template? I was hoping to have automatic downloads of data from my bank. Is that possible? Did your template track the difference between actual spending and budgeted spending? Can it automatically carry forward creating future spreadsheets while saving thee past ones? I am looking forward to learning. I was going to try to build my own spreadsheet but yours might just be the answer to my problems as long as I don’t need to spend long hours laboriously and mindlessly entering data? What do you think is this my answer?
Hi George. Back with your template. I can’t find a video of the Projections tab. Could you please send me a link? Thank you. Hope you and new family member are well x
BEST TEMPLATE EVER!!!!
I've been trying to teach myself excel but its been a long slow process 😭
Thank you! :) And good luck! It took me years of a lot of trial and error to learn Excel, but it's such a great tool and will be worth the time!
Thank you George! It is an amazing work, also thanks for sharing it, God bless you!
Thanks so much, Sergii! :)
Fantastic template and video! I am yet to use it for us but so far the best one I've seen to date. Thank you :)
Also after i posted i read the other comments and as i see i am not the only one who appreciates it. Your the man!
You shoul have a tip jar where for those of us that have saved at least $100 dollars we could tip you $1.00 if you got 10,000 im sure you would not mind!
Haha thanks! I don't have a tip jar but there are donation links in the description! That's about as close I could get, ha. Glad you like the workbook and I hope it will be useful to you.
perfect for me, not that good with spreadsheets but this was easy to set up and use! THANK YOU!
im here for my upated spreedsheet TY
Truly amazing. Thank you for sharing this with us. Worthy of my like and subscribe🤩🤩🤩
This has been a lifesaver! thanks so much for investing all your time to create this template and videos! If I could make one tiny suggestion...Id luv to see on the expenses a tab to show whether the expense is monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, or once a year...Most people have alot of those, and it really throws off the figures or maybe im doing it wrong?
Great work! Thank you very much for using your time to help others!
Thanks for the kind words, Luis! :)
YOU ARE A LEGEND!!!
Hi, Do you have a tutorial video on the projections tab? I can't find it but this video suggests you were planning on publishing one? Great template!
This is really awesome! Thank you so much for this!
No problem! Thank you for the comment :)
Thanks You So Much for the template.
Wow! This is quite impressive. Thanks.
Thanks so much, Scott! :) (Also, sorry for the slow reply.)
Fantastic tool, thank you very much George !!
Thank you! So glad you like it :)
Hi George!Thanks for sharing the template :)! Would you have a tutorial regarding the formulas you used on the budget please? I'll make a few changes on the layout but overall, thumbs up to your work!
Thank you so much for sharing this! Would love to have a check register. It would make a great addition.
This is amazing thank you so much
Excellent information!! Thank you!
Awesome work!
Thank you! :)
Thanks mate, at 3:19 you mention a video on the Projections tab, is this still around somewhere?
Wow thank you so much!
you're a fucking genius for plugging the people with a link to your template. Keep up the good work brother!
I just downloaded this, As I like it very much. Are you looking to get into the stock/tickers. Thanks
I like your video! Thank you for making it available for download. I am going to try and use it to help me know where my money is going and be a able to plan better. Thanks so much, I will subscribe and maybe donate.
This template is amazing! I was making one myself and got soooo excited when fount yours. Thanks for allowing others to use it! On The Projections tab, is there an easy way to change the dates? or should I do it one by one?
Hello George, thank you for such an amazing budget template. Also, can you guide me how to change the currency symbol?
Hi George, thanks for the Template! What if I am a day late for my budget and I want the sheet to reflect the summary of my expenses last month but the Today() references this month?
Thanks George
thanks the spreadsheet seems very well done, how is it possible to custom the currencies? like receiving income from different currencies and spending in different currencies, not only USD, how to do so ?
Hi, what a great program I hope to use it in our household array. I am however stuck on one issue. The [projections] page only goes to December 2021. For some reason I am having trouble getting the tables to extend out to 2024 without messing up formulas or other confusion. Can anybody help me here? I am opening in Microsoft 365 Home and would consider myself a novice user. I have tried dragging the tables out, or copying and special fill by month, etc but can't seem to get it right. Thanks.
I'm having the same issue and just started using this
Hello George, I have a few questions regarding the Projections tab. What do we manually estimate and what is automatically updated. I do love this budget. Thank you!
Looks Great! Can we show our daily bank, loan & credit card balances?
Amazing work wow
I'm Happy ^__^ Thank you Very Much
No problem! Glad you like it :)
Exactly what I needed, thank you so much💃
How do I change the currency displayed?
Hi, thank you for the template, it is very useful and exactly what I was looking for. I have a question though: how do I expand the Projections beyond December 2021? Nothing I try seems to work for me (when trying to expand range to the right, I get a message to remove AutoFilters first).
Hi Oliver, and thanks for your question. I plan to make a separate video on that sheet soon (just had a baby and finished grad school so I'm a bit behind!), but the basic idea is to first make sure all tables are fully expanded, then drag the bottom right corner outward. You'll have to manually adjust headings. For the top-most table, you'll also have to drag across the formulas, and may need to adjust them. Does that help at all?
This is amazing, but I need help. How do I add more months/years to the projection tab? It ends on December 2021. I don’t know how to add these past 3 months
How do I change the currency sign from $ to £ please?
Thank you sir
@George Hayward does this record my past month's budget as well, is where? And do I need to empty everything at the end of the month and then redo my budget for the following month? If so, which sections do I empty? I am assuming just the Budget, Income, Expenses and the Account Balances
I downloaded this template in Nov 2023. Everything works fine. But, only problem is projections tab. It shows only months from 2019 to 2021. How can I update it to show me projections for 2023-24?
I have been looking for a budget and tracking ss that uses "buckets" for annual expenses but tracks monthly money set aside for the inevitable expense.
didnt see it here.
Hi George, love your videos. Is there a field for Net Worth and with the projection tab, can you add in filters like expected mortgage interest rate? (apologies in advance if this has already been answered!)
Hi, I just started using your template, I was wondering how I could change the Projection tab start date to be different than 2019
This looks brilliant and I have downloaded the blank template - thank you! Quick question, is there a way to quickly change everything from $ to £?
Hi. I'm looking for some help editing in the Lists tab. I've attempted to follow the instructions but wasn't successful. I want to add more options under the accounts list to track all of my credit cards. I think I was fine until the "Data/Validate" step. Any further advice? Btw: fantastic workbook. It's exactly what I was trying to create but mine would have taken months to get it right. Thank you!
I've got the money manager app which is easy for entry of expenses if only there was a way to import that data into this correctly 🤔 it exports data into excel sheets.
George, I appreciate your workbook, however, it appears I cannot change any of the categories as explained in the lists tab. Its likely due to me using a MacBook. Any thoughts?
I am having difficulty adding more Accounts for "account balance" tracking. Sort of lost on the data validation part with choosing the source. is there a difference using Mac Excel version vs. Windows? Great video and template btw. Thank you.
Hi George excellent work book in fact brilliant. You mentioned there is more information on how to do the projections Could you pleae direct me can't seem to find it. You mentioned it briefly above. This was an addition from your original spreadsheet I would just like an idiots guide. Many thanks
Hi Mick! Thanks for the question. There are some basic instructions at the top, but I do plan to make a separate video on that sheet. It is definitely the most complicated, though to me it's also the most helpful. In the last few months I finished graduate school and my wife had a baby, so I'm behind on the videos but hopefully they'll be coming soon!
George Hayward Thanks George it has certainly helped me thanks again looking forward to the video when it appears. I have subscribed so will be aware when it comes out.
This would be great but we need a tutorial on how to change the names of "types of Expenses". It's complicated for novices
Change the names in the list tab
I am a novice at this, but am trying my best. I need to add to additional account names in the Account Balances tab. How should I do that?
I love this budget but I cant adjust the account list. I followed your instructions but somehow it didn't transfer to the other tabs. We are buying a house and this workbook will help us estimate costs. Thanks
Hi Tamar, and thanks for your question. What happens after you change the lists on the Lists tab?
@@georgemhayward I was able to change"types of expenses" and "types of income" successfully but I needed to add to the Accounts column. I followed your instructions and dragged the bottom right corner downward. When I tried to select the right account only the first 5 accounts were on the drop-down menu, not the 2 I added.
Hi! Am i missing the projections video you describe in this video? I'm not finding it anywhere!
Thanks for this one but for me after feeding income balance and expense the individual account balance is not calculating anything
Would this be interactive if uploaded onto my drive account so that I can access it from a variety of devices?
Hi George, I three account were income flows into but i have to move money around each account to pay specific bills. how do i handle thisi n your spreadsheet. Thanks
is it possible to change the currency not in a manual way?
plus there's a problem with the "financial year" option.. there's an error
thanks so much! really helpful!
Hi Dekel, thanks for your question. The only way I know how to change the currency is the manual way, but it is pretty simple and should only take a few seconds. What error are you receiving with the financial year? I haven't come across any errors with that.
A great spreadsheet, thanks. IS there an easy way to change currency from $ to £. ive changed the cells in Income through projections to format cells as £. however this does not reflect in the Summary graphs and data over time sheets, which still display as (partly) $
Hi! Sorry for the slow response. The first thing you'll want to do is make sure the signs are correct on the Summary tab, since that's where all data on the Summary Graphs sheet comes from. Second, if that doesn't fix it, double click the values that show up on the bars. Something should pop up that lets you format the "data labels." There should be an option for "number." Click this and change the currency sign there (it should be a drop down menu). Let me know if that still doesn't fix it!
Loved the previous version, I've been using it for a year now. I'm noticing that the all earning and all expense category tables on the summary tab don't reset from year to year. Wondering if there's a way to have those tables only populate data for the new fiscal year. I'll also thinking of pulling all my data from the old version into the new one because I really like the projections tab. I think it could be extremely useful for long term planning and goals
Hi Lauren! I'm so glad you've liked the workbook. There isn't currently a way to restrict the summary data to a particular time frame (like a fiscal year), but it's the next big update I plan to do! I wanted to post the new version before the new year and just didn't have time to get to that last part, unfortunately. But hopefully soon! The Projections tab is my favorite part of the new version - I hope you'll like it too! I plan to post a video on it soon, since it's also the most complicated sheet. Happy new year!
Can’t find the projected video you said to check out
I am new at this after downloading your earlier version (2017) a few days ago. I find your video very interesting in its simplicity. I played around with it to see if I can work with it and adapt it to my current paper budget. I already stumbled on a problem. Maybe it's not a problem but I can't find a way to complete the changes. I made changes in the Lists tab 'Type of Expenses'. Changed the names and deleted others. However, these changes, after saving file, are not transferred along to the other tabs. Am I doing something wrong?
Hello George, great Sheet I have a question would you have this in Google Sheets ?
Hi Paul, thanks for your question. Unfortunately, I don't think this is compatible with Google Sheets, though you are welcome to try to adapt it!
If you download it to Google Drive, it will automatically convert to Google Sheets.
Hey George When i change the expense category on the list tab, its not updating in the summary and Budget expense Category.
Hi George, Great template thanks. I have a couple of questions:
1) Is it possible to add a start date for a regular expense or income, so that it doesn't mess with your averages etc? For example, your partner starts a new income stream half way through the year, it will show the average per month on the summary as =(total/months on file) but that could be way off if your file has been running for longer than the income stream.
2) Also, having a currency look up, would be great, so that others could toggle on a look up in the List Tab? I have changes all currency references to Euro manually, but I see the comment below many times, so worth a thought for next addition if its possible!?
Thanks again, your feedback or tip on first point above would be great. Cheers
Hi Chris, thanks for the comment and suggestion! I definitely agree with your first point and you are correct about that shortcoming. I have made a note on this and will try to include it in my next update (not sure when that will be, though). For the second point, I'm not quite sure what you mean by "toggle on a look up in the List tab." Are you saying have a macro or something that changes all the currency? I do agree, though, that something like this would be good! I have so far avoided macros because I'm worried about compatibility for users with older versions of Excel.
How many rows of expenses can I add in the budget line as it is limiting me to add further expenses and its not extending the data validations
Thanks
No problem! Glad you like it :)
For some reason i cannot get the drop down menus to work. i select the cell below the drop down menu select data to data validation select list the select source it will not allow me to select the list tab. I am using office 2007. Any idea what im doing wrong?