Budgeting is becoming cool again!
It really comes as no surprise that more and more people are starting to budget as the economy tightens up. I have been noticing more people interested in budgeting – which gets me excited! If you have been around here for any length of time you know that I was converted to budgeting and have been thrilled at how liberating it has been. Yes, I said liberating – I believe that budgeting should be fun and if done properly, it really makes your life a whole lot more peaceful.
In an effort to help out some of the new budgeting converts, I decided to put together this article as a means of consolidating a bunch of budgeting resources. Some are worksheets I created and some are from others. Just about all of them can be downloaded as a PDF, which you can then print from your printer. I have included the Excel file for many of them as well – if you are into that. So hopefully you will be able to find a worksheet that will help you create a better budget! Enjoy!
Just FYI: Quicken Online used to charge $3 a month to use their online money management tool, but it is now FREE! It is very feature-rich and may be worth trying out if you are looking for a money management tool. Find out more about Quicken’s Online Edition
Free Basic budgeting worksheet
This is budgeting worksheet I created that I use when I am trying to add up my total monthly expenses and compare them to my income. I like it because it has about every possible expense that you could have in your budget. It’s very simple and isn’t fancy at all, but it gets the job done when I am making adjustments to my monthly budget.
- Download or print it: Printable budget worksheet.pdf
- Excel: Printable budget worksheet.xls
Printable Budget Worksheet from Freddie Mac
FreddieMac.com provides this budgeting worksheet. It allows you to budget specific amounts for the month and then compare the figures after the month’s end to see your areas for improvement.
- Download or print it: FM Printable budgeting worksheet.pdf
Budgeting worksheet for students
Amsa.com (American Student Assistance) provides this budget sheet. It is simple and will help college students create a budget to keep them in line financially.
- Download or print it: Budget Worksheet_2008.pdf
Christmas shopping budget worksheet
A few years ago after getting frustrated with finding myself in debt every year after Christmas, I decided I needed to take some steps in the right direction by budgeting for Christmas. So, what we did was created a list of everyone who we could imagine buying gifts for that year and we used this worksheet to stay within our budget.
- Download or print it: Christmas Budgeting Worksheet.pdf
- Excel: Christmas Budgeting Worksheet.xls
Bill payment schedule
This is another worksheet that was birthed out of a frustrating situation. I found that while I traditionally had been good about paying my bills on time, I was occasionally late on payments – and it wasn’t because I didn’t have the money, but because I didn’t have a good system in place to pay the bills. So I created a worksheet that I still use 2 times each month that allows me to schedule and pay the bills on time!
- Download and print it: bill-payment-schedule.pdf
- Excel: Bill payment schedule.xls
Financial Life on One Page (FLOP)
This is a worksheet that I created to help keep my financial life organized. Basically it is a spreadsheet that contains all of my account details (balances, etc) that would be a very valuable help to my wife if I were to suddenly leave this earth. Since I know a lot more about the details of our financial accounts, I feel that it is part of my responsibility to have things in order for her if I weren’t here. This worksheet helps me do that. To find out more specifically how to benefit from this worksheet check out this article… Your financial life on one page.
- Download or print it: FLOP_Printable_Balance_Sheet.pdf
- Excel: FLOP_Printable_Balance_Sheet.xls
Debt Snowball worksheet
If you are following the recommended Debt Snowball as a means of paying down your debts, then this worksheet might be helpful.
- Find out more about the Debt Snowball Worksheet.
Other free budgeting worksheets
Related posts:
- Free budgeting form
- 15 free budgeting tools
- 10 free household budget spreadsheets
- Having family budgeting troubles?
- Classic budgeting with Mvelopes Personal
- Whats the best FREE personal finance software?
- Budgeting is like baking cookies
- Budgeting for giving
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These are great, thanks for posting. I’m big on using excel and have created various spreadsheet to help me keep track of just about everything (not just finances), but it did not occur to me to create one to keep track of Bill Payments. What a great idea. I’m not exactly sure how to use your bill payment schedule to keep track of the monthly amounts (do you reset each month?), so I may rework it a bit so I can see the amounts for each month, but it’s a great template to get me started.
This is awesome, thanks for the list!
Great list. I think these spreadsheets are a great tool for starting a budget. There is really no need to spend money on Quicken or other software to get your household on a budget. After all the goal is to find ways to save money….
Pretty good post. I just came across your blog and wanted to say
that I’ve really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Anyway
I’ll be subscribing to your blog and I hope you write again soon!
Great list! I would also like to add that I have created my own monthly budget spreadsheet that is free to download on the “Budgeting” page of my blog. It is most similar to the Freddie Mac sheet except that it is more color-coded and there is a calender-like section where you can type in what you spend each day in each category and it will automatically calculate how much total you have spent in that category so far for the month. The advantage to this is that it lets you see how much money you have left to spend for the month until you reach the budgeted amount in each category!
These list are so great. I started using the Bill Payment Schedule. Awesome.
Thanks a bunch.
Thanks for these!!! The worksheets are very helpful. I think the one I’d be abusing is the Christmas one, that’s nearly the only time I ever fidget about money.
Another source is Google Docs, http://www.google.com/google-d-s/whatsnew.html.
I use Google Docs for my business and they already have various templates such as personal finance spreadsheets and they have been useful for me.
Plus, you can access the sheet from any computer that has internet access.
I hope this could be helpful to someone.
Budgeting IS cool again. No longer a 10 letter swear word.
Thanks for the tools to make it easier. We should have to work to appreciate the final resuld of better money stewardship, however, if that were the case, I don’t think anyone would budget.
I’m sure others have been looking for an automated or premade budgeting worksheet too.
I just reviewed these and I’m going to start using the bill payment schedule first of all the others.
Thanks,
Guy