if you're looking for a quick and easy budgeting tool this is it my name is Michael and welcome
to the Michael saves youtube channel this is my updated Google sheets budget template tutorial
and in this video I'm gonna walk you through the steps of setting up this budget in real time you
can pause fast-forward and rewind I'll have quick links below to help you get to the points of the
video faster let's get started there are five steps in my process and step one is coming up
right now step one is to locate and open the Google sheets monthly budget template now I
prefer to setup my budget from a desktop or laptop computer not from a smartphone and when you open
Google sheets from a computer look for the monthly budget template right here at the top if for some
reason you don't see it you can click on template gallery and you should be able to find it right
here under personal step two is to start with the clean slate now once you've opened the monthly
budget template the first thing you want to do is to give it a new name in the upper left corner you
see that it is named monthly budget change it to sample budget to copy every month I'll explain why
that's important coming up a little bit later next you want to delete the sample amounts on
the summary and transaction spreadsheets there are two spreadsheets that make up this budget
template now you want to make sure you follow these instructions carefully because if you do
this incorrectly it could break the formulas in the spreadsheet we're going to begin with
the transaction spreadsheet you see that I flipped over at the bottom of the screen from summary two
transactions and to delete the sample expenses for rent and paycheck all you have to do is you
need to go to the number five here on the left side select that entire row and then you select
delete values from the Edit drop-down those sample transactions are gone after that scroll down to
the bottom of the transaction spreadsheet you see that it ends with row 33 now that's going to be a
problem if you have more than 33 transactions in any given month so just click add 1,000 more rows
at bottom and then you won't have any trouble running out of space for transit Asians once
you've made those changes we're gonna go back over to the summary spreadsheet and make a few
more changes there to start with a clean slate adjust the starting balance from one thousand
to zero that's in cell l 8 then zero out with sample home and paycheck amounts shown in the
shaded column the summary spreadsheet ends with row 44 if you think you may be divisional expense
categories beyond the ones listed here you want to click again add 1,000 more rows at bottom you're
gonna get this pop up screen that says you're trying to edit part of the sheet that shouldn't be
changed accidentally edit anyway it's safe to do so I've done this many times click OK we're moving
on to step 3 and that's to customize a sample monthly budget now before you adjust the expense
categories on the summary spreadsheet I recommend that you create a third spreadsheet for fixed
expenses now the purpose for this is to separate your fixed and variable expenses so let me explain
how I do it in the lower left corner of the screen click on the plus sign for add sheet and then
change the name of the sheet to fixed expenses then list your fixed expenses and how much you
plan to spend on them every single month there are only two columns for this worksheet expenses
and then projected I went ahead and filled out a sample list here once you have your fixed expenses
you can highlight them all and use the sum feature to add them all up in this case $1500 make note
of this number and then flip back over to the summary spreadsheet next change the first line
on the expenses column from food to fixed expenses and enter the amount from the spreadsheet that you
just created now all of the fixed expenses take up only one line on the summary spreadsheet and you
can focus on the variable or flexible spending categories that have a greater impact on your
day-to-day budget from here you can safely change the shaded expense in income categories on the
summary spreadsheet through 41 so for example I can change gifts to groceries if I want to that
won't have an impact on the spreadsheet formulas but for now don't fill in any of the planned
expenses except for the fixed expenses that we just did we're gonna do that a little bit later on
if you need help determine your budget categories you can always go back and review recent credit
card and bank statements here's what it looks like after I spent a couple minutes customizing the
expenses side of the summary worksheet and filling in my own categories you can also do this with the
income side I choose to use this spreadsheet just for expenses that's up to you now go down to line
41 this is really key a lot of people say they need additional rows of expenses because they
have more budget categories you have to be really careful when you are adding these additional rows
or you could mess up the spreadsheet formulas if you think that you'll need additional rows
or if you know that you'll need to ditional rows stick with me otherwise you can fast forward to
the next step and I'll have a timestamp below right now we're going to address this issue of
how to add more custom categories in the Google sheets budget template first determine the number
of expense categories that you want to add now it doesn't hurt to have the extra blank rows so
maybe five or ten rows that'll work for you even if you won't use them all then you want to follow
these steps go to the last row of the expense column for you it may say custom category 3 or
you may have already changed it and filled it in it doesn't matter as long as you're on line
41 you're in the right place then highlight the cells that you want to duplicate we're gonna drag
down using the blue handle as far as you want to go I'm going to stop at line 50 you'll get this
pop up again and you can click OK next you want to just rename the categories anything you want
after that jot down the last row that you created in this example it is row 50 and I've called it
new category 10 then you want to flip over to the transaction spreadsheet to continue from
the top of the transaction spreadsheet navigate to the category drop-down as you can see here
not all the budget categories are reflected remember I stopped at new category 10 but I
only see new categories 1 through 4 right here so I'm going to show you how to fix that highlight
the first cell under category on the expenses side that's row 5 and column E right here from
the data menu then select data validation in the cell range field you want to change transactions
exclamation point B 5 to the following just add : e 1000 to the end and click OK
now in the criteria summary field change the last two numbers of this formula to
match the number of your last row from the summary spreadsheet remember I just
told you to jot that down for me that means I'm going to change this C 44 to C 50 click
Save now when I check the category drop-down you see that all of my categories through new
category 10 are there step 4 make a copy of the sample budget and plan your spending so
now that you've customized the sample monthly budget the fourth step is to make a copy of it
to save the work that you've already done and actually start budgeting for the upcoming month
so go to file select make a copy and then rename the budget for the upcoming month
so as you can see all the categories and the fixed expenses spreadsheet have been copied
over now from here you want to just plan your spending for the month in all of your budget
categories and make sure that the total doesn't exceed your monthly income and if you need to make
tweaks to your categories or the fixed expenses spreadsheet in the future those changes to the
sample budget before you make a copy every single month everything's all filled in and
we're moving on to step 5 track your expenses with the Google sheets app now once I set up my
budget on a computer at the start of the month I typically do the rest of my budgeting on the
go with the mobile app you are looking at my computer screen still but everything I'm about
to show you you can do this on the app it is free for download for either Apple or Android devices
I use the free app to get an overall snapshot of my spending from the summary spreadsheet and also
to log my transactions using the transaction spreadsheet so let me show you how that works
a common example so again pretend that we're using the mobile app right now before I go the
grocery store I'll open the Google sheets app and I'll look at the summary tab right here you
can see I have $400 budgeted for groceries so I want to know how much I have left to spend for
that month then after I complete my purchase at the grocery store I will flip over to the
transactions tab and I'll enter that transaction right here so let's say I'm spending $50 of the
grocery store I could easily categorize it like that and then when you flip back to the summary
page it will reflect the transaction that you just made checking in with my budget before
every purchase this has saved me a lot of money and if I realize that I don't have enough money
budgeted for something that I want to buy I can either skip the purchase or move money
from another category so let me explain how that works for example in this sample budget
I have $400 planned for groceries and 300 for restaurants but let's say that I'm at risk of
going over my budget for groceries I could pull $100 from restaurants changing that from 300 to
200 then that would increase groceries from 400 to 500 I'm not changing the overall total
plan spending for the month just the categories now another great thing about the Google sheets
budget template is that you can share it if you maintain a budget with a partner you can both make
changes to the budget from a computer tablet or smartphone just use the share button in the upper
right corner that's a wrap for this Google sheets budget template tutorial I also have written step
by step instructions on my blog Michel saves calm if you have any questions leave them in
the comments below and keep watching Michel saves to keep saving money in your daily life