Easy Budgeting

With the start of a real job in the real world, with a real salary. I decided to be proactive in budgeting how I spend that money, so I created a Google Excel sheet to help me track how I spend my money each month. I created a sample budget here. This assumes $2500 per month, which is $30,000...kind of average, I think.

First, set up how much money will be allocated to each category of spending. Mine are as follows:

(By the way, clicking on the images makes them larger...if you didn't know.)

*Rent & Utilities $440

*Car Insurance $80

*Phone $50

*401K & HSA $150

Groceries $200

Gas $100

Savings $400

Emergency $100

Miscellaneous $880

Miscellaneous Food $100

The items with asterisks are pretty set in stone. With the exception of utilities, these spending categories don't vary from month to month. So, set your allotted spending for these categories first.

*Rent & Utilities

*Car Insurance For most people our age, it's more affordable to keep your car insurance under your parent's name. My dad hasn't actually confirmed how much I will be paying him for this, but for budgeting puposes, I have assumed around $80...which is high.

*Phone

*401K & HSA At my job, our insurance is set up as a Health Savings Account. Basically, I pay a portion of the cost to have this account and then I can chose how much to put into the account (not taxed) each month.

After you've set the budget for these categories, then determine how much you have to spend in the more necessary categories: 

Groceries

Gas 

Then you play around with numbers for the following categories. I would do Miscellaneous last, depending on how much you have to allocate there.

Savings Try to put back as much as you can.

Emergency I would do no less than $100.

Miscellaneous This is the most flexible category. 

Miscellaneous Food I eat out about three times a week and I would say $100 is about right.

I also have a Money Back column for returns, interest, graduation money, etc. In the end, this is totaled at the top (like all other categories) and subtracted from the Total.

Now, you're going to create a Google Excel sheet. You must have a Gmail account to do this. On the top menu bar, go to Drive and then on the left side, Create and Spreadsheet. Then you'll get a window that looks like mine.

Now, you have two options. You can Copy + Paste my budget into your new Spreadsheet (as shown below), or you can create the functions for each box yourself. 

Under each spending category, you will list the allocated budget and then the sum of the column =SUM (X5:X100). If you aren't too familiar with Excel, I will explain that what this does is keep the running total of the sum of all numbers between the X5 form and the X100 form. You will do this with each category. Then, in the box under Total, you will =SUM(C3:M3) which totals all the totals for each column.

As I mentioned, we can now subtract the Money Back column. In the box beneath (Including Money Back) we code in =SUM(N3-M3). N3 being the summed Total and M3 the summed Money Back.

Finally, we create a Total Remaining, so that as we input purchases throughout the month, we can see where we stand towards meeting our Total. Beneath Total Remaining, code =SUM(N2-N6) which is the Total you determined as being your total income for the month, minus the summed Total that changes with each purchase.

I have found this to be so helpful, though is kind of annoying to keep track up. I always save my receipts and then put them all in when I think of it.

HELPFUL HINT: Google Drive has an App, so you can update your budget on the go! Check it out...