Personal budget planner
Calculate monthly income and expenses with free customizable online personal budget planning templates from Microsoft Excel.
Organize personal finances with budget templates in Excel
Manage how money moves each month with simple online templates. Put financial strategies into practice by organizing budget categories across income, discretionary spending, and expenses such as debt payments, utilities, housing, and transportation costs.
Manage money easily with budget templates
Start by customizing a personal budget template in Excel online. Save time with pre-built financial formulas that automatically calculate total income and expenses. Choose from a variety of templates for different specific needs, including family expenses and college budgets.
Track income and expenses
Manage income from paychecks and self-employment or personal expenses like rent, utilities, insurance, and transportation. Use the financial tracker in Excel to track where money goes over set time periods.
Work toward personal finance goals
Assign limits for expense categories to avoid overspending. Use a savings tracker to build an emergency fund, sinking fund, or vacation fund. Follow a payday routine to allocate money for necessities, savings, and debt.
Automate budget calculations
Use included income and expense tracking formulas to see projected and actual balances to minimize manual errors. Calculate average weekly or monthly spending in a specific category oe calculate potential future savings and budget reallocation.
Visualize cash flow
Quickly see spending trends in template dashboards. Use pie charts, line, and bar graphs to visualize spend by category or compare projected and actual expenses. Easily customize visuals in templates to showcase preferred imagery.
Get more done with Copilot in Excel
Chat with Copilot in Excel to create a pivot table or choose the right formula. Have Copilot analyze historical budget data to find expenses that increased the most. Ask Copilot to create a new column showing change over time or to provide a summarization.
Work and share across devices
Open a budget spreadsheet on any device in Excel online. Easily share access with family members or financial planner to co-author. Make quick updates on mobile devices and lock certain cells from future editing to reduce the chance of manual errors.
Ways to use personal budgets
Savers: grow emergency funds and save more each month.
Self-employed: keep separate business and personal budgets.
Individuals with debt: pay off debt with snowball or other strategies.
College students: manage cash flow and living expenses.
Goal-oriented: practice strategies like the zero-based budget or 50/30/20 rule.
How to create a personal budget in Excel
Start with a personal budget template
Edit expense categories such as food, mortgage, rent, insurance premiums, and entertainment
Input income and set spending goals by category
Enter actual expenses and analyze them at the end of the period
Visualize spend by category or planned vs actual with graphs and charts
Frequently asked questions
What is a personal budget?
A personal budget is a system that allows you to track and categorize expenses and subtract them from income for a period. Using a budget lets you clearly see where money is going, and it can help you practice better financial habits.
What is cash flow in a personal budget?
Cash flow is income after all expenses for a period, like one month. Ideally, cash flow should be positive or zero if you use a zero-based budgeting system. If you have negative cash flow, that means you’ve spent more than you’ve made in the month.
How to budget money for beginners?
To start budgeting money, calculate monthly income and expenses. For better accuracy, divide annual expenses by 12 and include that amount in monthly budget. Then, categorize each expense and set a spending target for each category. Decide on a goal, like paying down high-interest debt or creating an emergency fund. Then, review budget regularly to record what you’ve spent and compare it to your targets.
How to track my expenses in Excel?
Track expenses in Excel with a free personal budget template. Enter expenses manually or add a spreadsheet with transactions. Subtotal expenses by category and set category spending limits. Use conditional formatting to see where you’ve spent more than your goal.
How to customize a budget template in Excel?
Edit categories and subcategories to match spending habits for food, entertainment, travel, housing, insurance, and more. Then, customize planned spending limits for each category, like spending $200.00 at restaurants. You can also add columns to compare spending in categories over time or add a table tracking bills by due date.
What are budgeting strategies?
Budgeting strategies can give you more control over finances. The 50/30/20 rule is one example, which states 50% of your income should go to necessities, 30% to wants, and 20% to saving and debt payoff. According to the zero-based budgeting strategy, you intentionally spend every dollar to have zero left over after subtracting expenses from income. Expenses can include savings and debt payments.