Sophie Explains

Congratulations on taking the first step towards achieving your financial goals by reading this post! To celebrate, this week we have a two-part series on starting your very own budgeting spreadsheet. If you spend one hour at the end of each month recording and reviewing where you spent your money, you can stay focused on your savings goals.

A budgeting spreadsheet helps you understand where to cut back in spending to make room for what is important to you.

Budgeting is a work in progress, but it can be a fun one! There is no perfect template that will help you start saving money right away, and you might have to adjust the spreadsheet every few months to fit your lifestyle and spending habits. Maybe you enjoy collecting video games or are saving for a wedding or love to pamper your pets! Everyone has different priorities for spending their money that are factors for your spreadsheet.

To get you started I have created a generic Starter Budgeting Spreadsheet based off of my own current spreadsheet:

View the Spreadsheet on Google Drive

To save this spreadsheet in an editable format, go to File in the top left corner of the page, and then Make a Copy. This will create your own private and editable spreadsheet in Google Drive. If you prefer to use Excel, go to File, Download As, Excel.

Later this week we will learn step-by-step how to fill out the spreadsheet. If you haven’t already created a free account with Mint.com, don’t forget to sign up (it only takes 15 minutes!) and link your accounts so you are ready to go on Thursday!

Note to Readers: I wanted to thank each and every one of you for all of the support I have received since launching the site, you are all amazing! Also, I want to hear from you, what budgeting problems or questions do you have? If you are thinking it, I promise other people are too, so reach out on Facebook or my Contact Page and I will do my best to answer everyone!