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Free Budget Calculator

When it comes to personal finance, it's best not to play the guessing game. Sometimes the easiest way to manage your monthly budget is to visualize it. With Quicken's budget calculator, it's easier than ever to manage your finances.

Getting Started: Put Together a Budget

Take the time to add up your total monthly income from all sources and list your regular monthly expenses to create a monthly budget. Categorize expenses in groups to make the process simpler. For example, include mortgage payments or rent as well as utilities when you list an amount for housing. Transportation includes not just your car payments but gas, insurance, registration and repairs as well. Quicken's Free Budget Calculator gives you a boost toward getting this done by doing all the math for you.

Review Where Your Money Goes

One benefit of building a budget is that it forces you to track your spending and see in black and white (or in this case—color) where your money goes. This kind of expense-tracking exercise shows how even little costs add up.

Realize Your Goals

Creating a budget forces you to reevaluate your goals and priorities. If you aren't saving money for the things you plan to do, you aren't likely to do them. For example, rather than fantasize about buying a home or going back to school, include contributions to funding these goals in your monthly budget.

Emergency Planning: Prepare for the Unexpected

You can prepare for the unexpected by creating an emergency fund with sufficient cash to carry you through hard times. Your emergency fund should contain enough money to pay your bills for three to six months. Make your 'emergency fund' a budget item and contribute small amounts monthly until the fund is large enough to serve as a safety net.

This free family budget planner is based on the spreadsheet that I use for my own finances. It was very useful for handling major life events such as transition from student - to married student - to intern - to employee - to home owner. With careful budget planning, we were able to make ends meet so that by the time we wanted to buy a house, we knew exactly what we could afford.

This spreadsheet has been used by hundreds of thousands of people and remains one of my most popular budgeting tools. However, many people may not realize that I have created a few other variations recently. You might want to check out the Money Manager template or yearly Budget Calculator. Both of these provide additional features that the basic planner does not have.

If you are new to Excel or new to budgeting, or both, take a look at the video demo below. It will show you how to get started, how to customize your budget categories, how to enter budget amounts for each month, and how to tell whether you are under or over budget each month.

Family Budget Planner

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License: Private Use (not for distribution or resale)

Other Versions

Budget Planner Book

Description

This free family budget planner worksheet will help you create a yearly budget by entering amounts based on the month in which expenses are incurred.

Budget Planner Worksheet

By creating a yearly budget, you can more easily predict how major life changes will affect your finances. For example, if you are changing jobs, you can use the planner to estimate whether the increase (or decrease) in pay will still allow you to make ends meet.

If you are moving or buying a home, you can analyze your budget to see where you may need to cut back to be able to afford an increase in rent or a higher mortgage. Watch the video for an example.

New in Version 2.0: The new graphs show your spending and savings balance over time. Percentages below the category totals show you what percent of the total family budget is going to that category. The help worksheet is much more detailed now.

See our articles How to Make a Budget and 5 Basic Budgeting Tips if you are just getting started or new to budgeting.

'No installation, no macros - just a simple spreadsheet' - by Jon Wittwer

Budget Planner Printable

More Family Budget Planner Spreadsheets

Budget Planner Book

• Money Manager - The ultimate money management spreadsheet. It lets you record transactions and compare your expenses to your budget.
• Monthly Household Budget - The monthly version of the template on this page.
• Personal Budget Spreadsheet - Similar to the family version, but with fewer categories.
• Personal Monthly Budget The monthly version of the personal budget spreadsheet.
• Home Budget Worksheet - Our original selection of home budget worksheets.
• For a general definition of budgeting, see the Budget article on wikipedia.com

Budget Planner Notebook

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