How to Create a Personal Budget in Excel (With Easy Steps)

The cornerstone of your economic stability is a plan. Making a budget, however, can give you far greater confidence in your financial choices. The main purpose of creating a budget at this point in life is to make absolutely sure that we are accumulating sufficient revenue. With Microsoft Excel, we can easily make that plan. In this article, we will demonstrate the procedures to create a personal budget in Excel.


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You can download the template and practice with them.


What Is a Budget?

A budget is a financial strategy for a specific time frame. It is an estimate of income and expenditures for a given time horizon and is often created and updated frequently. This is the breakdown of the earnings, monthly costs, and the quantity that may be set aside for saves. Your earnings and capital appreciation are both considered to be part of your earnings.


Step-by-Step Procedures to Create a Personal Budget in Excel

Excel budget creation might appear to be a difficult undertaking, especially when you are not using the application frequently. This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to establish an Excel budget that can be readily modified to match your needs, regardless of how straightforward or intricate the budgeting.

Excel has so many templates for budgeting. If you want to use those templates you can simply go to New from the backstage menu of excel options. Then, search for Budget and there you go! You can see many budget templates.

Step-by-Step Procedures to Create a Personal Budget in Excel

But in this article, we will create a personal budget sheet from scratch. So, let’s follow the steps to making a personal budget template.


Step 1: Set up a Table of Total Income

Firstly, we need to set a table of total income. The total income is the gross sales from across all assets with less specific exclusions like costs, permits, and consolation payments.

  • In the first place, we insert a column of Sources of income. In this case, Office, Freelancing, and Side Business.
  • Secondly, we need to put the dates, when we can withdraw the money from sources.
  • Thirdly, the planned and the actual income for each source.

Step-by-Step Procedures to Create a Personal Budget in Excel

  • Next, we want to calculate the difference between the planned and actual income from each source. For this, insert the simple formula into that selected cell (F5).
=E5-D5
  • Then, press Enter to see the result.

Step-by-Step Procedures to Create a Personal Budget in Excel

  • Now, to calculate the total planned income we will use the SUM function. So, we first select the cell and insert the formula into that cell (D8).
=SUM(D5:D7)
  • Further, hit Enter.

Step-by-Step Procedures to Create a Personal Budget in Excel

  • Similarly, we want to compute the total of the actual income with the SUM function in the E8 cell.
=SUM(E5:E7)
  • Furthermore, press the Enter key to see the result of the calculation.

Step-by-Step Procedures to Create a Personal Budget in Excel

  • Drag the Fill Handle down (F5:F8) to duplicate the formula for calculating the difference over the range. Or, to AutoFill the range, double-click on the plus (+) symbol.

  • Finally, you can see the difference between the planned and actual for each source and also the total.

Read More: How to Make a Personal Monthly Budget in Excel (with 6 Quick Steps)


Step 2: Add Expenses

An expense is a business’s operational cost incurred to produce income. An expense is something that calls for the transfer of funds, or luck in terms, from one individual or organization to another because of compensation for a good, commodity, or even another type of expenditure. Now, we need to set all the expenses.

  • To begin with, we include the category which is Mortgage, Groceries, Utilities, Health Insurance and Loans in our case.
  • Then, put the Due Date for those categories.
  • Afterward, we input the planned and actual costs.
  • Likewise the previous step, for calculating the total of the planned expenses and actual expenses we use the SUM function.
  • Consequently, for computing the difference between the planned and actual expenses we use the simple subtraction method as shown in the earlier step.

Step-by-Step Procedures to Create a Personal Budget in Excel

Read More: How to Do Budgeting and Forecasting in Excel (2 Suitable Ways)


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Step 3: Create Funds and Saving Table

Next, we have to create the funds and saving tables. A fund is a collection of funds put aside for a certain objective. The amount of money earned that is not used for immediate expenses is saved. In other words, it refers to money that is stored away for later use rather than being immediately spent.

  • Firstly, we input the amount of money for funds. In our example, Emergency Fund, Maintenance, and Holidays.
  • Then, the planned and actual funds for each account.
  • Subsequently, to calculate the total of planned and actual funds we are using again the SUM function as in the earlier step 1.
  • Accordingly, similar to the funds we input to account for savings which are Retirement and College.
  • Also, the planned and actual amount for each account.

Step-by-Step Procedures to Create a Personal Budget in Excel


Step 4: Calculate Final Balance

In this step, we want to calculate the total spending.

  • Select the cell at first.
  • Then, put the formula into that cell (I17) to calculate the planned total spending.
=SUM(D18,I8,I15)
  • Hit the Enter button on your keyboard.

Here, D18 is the total planned expenses. I8 is the total funds and cell I15 is the total savings that we plan in the begging.

  • Now, we compute the total actual spending, for this insert the formula into the required cell.
=SUM(E18,J8,J15)
  • Finally, press the Enter key.

  • Further, the final thing is the calculation of the Final Balance.
  • For this, choose the cell where you want to see the result.
  • Then, type the formula into that cell.
=SUM(I17-D8)
  • Furthermore, hit the Enter button to see the result.

Step-by-Step Procedures to Create a Personal Budget in Excel

Here, I17 is the total spending that we planned and D8 is the total income that we have planning at the earlier moment.

  • Subsequently, to compute the final actual balance, put the formula into a selected cell.
=SUM(J17-E8)
  • Lastly, press Enter.


Step 5: Insert a Graph

To visualize the budget more often, we can insert a graph. Graphs are a popular tool for graphically illuminating data connections. We use graphs to convey data that are too many or complex. And those expresses fully in the text while taking up less space.

  • Firstly, we need to insert a new column that is the Percentage column.
  • To calculate the percentage, we will use a simple formula with division.
  • So, select the first cell (F13) of the column, and put the formula into that cell.
=E13/$E$18
  • Press Enter.

  • After that, drag the Fill Handle down to duplicate the formula over the range. Or, to AutoFill the range, double-click on the plus (+) symbol.

  • As a result, we can look at the percentage.

  • Further, go to the Insert tab from the ribbon.
  • Then, under the Charts category, click on the Insert Pie or Doughnut Chart drop-down menu.
  • Next select Doughnut.

  • Thus, the chart will show up with the categories.

Read More: Make a Budget Pie Chart in Excel (with Easy Steps)


Final Output of Personal Budget

This is the final template of the personal budget sheet.


Conclusion

The above procedures will assist you to Create a Personal Budget in Excel. Hope this will help you! Please let us know in the comment section if you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback. Or you can have a glance at our other articles in the ExcelDemy.com blog!


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Sabrina Ayon

Sabrina Ayon

Hi there! This is Sabrina Ayon. I'm really excited to welcome you to my profile. Currently, I'm working in SOFTEKO as a Team Leader. I'm a graduate in BSc in Computer Science and Engineering from United International University. I love working with computers and solving problems. I’ve always been interested in research and development. Here I post articles related to Microsoft Excel. Hoped this may help you. Thank you.

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