The Best Budgeting Templates to Manage Your Money

Whether you’re trying to break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck, get out of debt or build savings, a well-laid-out budget can help you reach your goals faster.

“A budget helps you reach your financial goals because it gives you a full understanding of your spending and saving,” says Jim Wang, founder of the personal finance blog Best Wallet Hacks. “This helps you find areas where you can cut back on your spending so you can increase your savings elsewhere.”

Start Simple

Budgeting can often feel intimidating, so Bobbi Rebell, certified financial planner and founder and CEO of Financial Wellness Strategies, suggests starting simple.

"Look at your available income and write down your priorities, then work from there and see where you can make adjustments,” she says.

For those who are ready to take the leap into budgeting, creating a spreadsheet from scratch isn’t necessary. You can save time and hassle by using a premade budget worksheet.

Some templates let you manually enter your information for free, or you can subscribe to a service that imports your financial data on a regular basis for effortless financial tracking.

Here’s a look at five of the best budget spreadsheets to begin your journey to financial wellness:

Please note that the popular app Mint will be shut down by owner Intuit as of Jan. 1, 2024, so it's not in this list; Intuit will integrate its user base into Credit Karma.

The Budget Mom’s Budget Packet

Sometimes, putting pen to paper helps you feel more connected to the habits you’re tracking, which makes the Monthly Budget Packet from TheBudgetMom a great resource for budgeting newbies, Rebell says.

This free, printable template provides a detailed income and expense tracking chart where you enter items such as fixed and variable expenses, debt and savings. You even get a bill tracker and monthly spending chart, so you have plenty of options to test which works best for your money management needs and preferences.

Google Sheets

Create a customized budget spreadsheet or grab a ready-to-go template through Google Sheets, which makes tracking finances easy. With many budgeting templates to choose from, you can find a tracking chart that fits your needs, whether you’re looking to manage your budget on a weekly or monthly basis, or you want a budgeting template for a specific event like a wedding or upcoming vacation.

Google Sheets offers built-in categories along with formulas that make calculating expenses against income easy. Some even come with preformulated charts and graphs to help you visualize your overall financial picture.

You can also filter expenses by category and send queries about certain purchases directly to your partner’s email through the spreadsheet. Another benefit of Google Sheets is that it’s easy to share with family members, and you can access it across multiple devices if you save it in Google Drive.

Microsoft Excel

If you have Microsoft Office, consider Microsoft Excel for your budgeting needs. Its suite of budgeting templates is designed to fit many different financial needs from personal family expenses to basic monthly budgeting to specific financial tracking for holidays, weddings, vacations and more. If you prefer to create your own customized template, basic Excel skills will get the job done.

Vertex42

Vertex42 enables you to choose from a variety of free spreadsheets, including income and expense tracking, personal monthly budgets and more.

For those who need help managing spending on a day-to-day basis, the budget calendar template allows you to track expenses using a calendar format that shows you when monthly bills need to be paid. It also includes daily account balances to help you avoid overdraft charges on your account.

Before you download any template, you can click on the link of the budgeting worksheet for a full description and screenshot of the layout to see if it will work for you.

Tiller

Entering your own financial data into a budget spreadsheet can be tedious, so Tiller offers a solution. It streamlines your financial accounts and automatically updates a budget template in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel with your spending, income and balances each day. This helps take the work out of tracking your finances, which is a hurdle many people face in taking control of their money, Wang says.

You can create your own budget spreadsheet or use an existing template, which gives you more flexibility to meet your personal needs. After a free 30-day trial, Tiller is $79 a year. Tiller also offers a free, nonautomated budgeting template.