Personal budget worksheet

Use a personal budget worksheet to get to grips with your budgeting. Every part of your life is covered from hobbies to household bills, so it's easy to keep track of where you're money's going each month.

Creating a personal budget will help you manage your money effectively, pay off debts or can be used to discuss payments with creditors. To take charge of your money, completing one of these is essential. Find out more about how to budget.

How this personal budget worksheet works

The worksheet looks at where your income comes from (work, benefits and gifts) and then looks at every area of your life to ensure you include all your expenses. It's divided into lots of different categories from home expenses, like household bills to lifestyle expenses such as hobbies or getting your hair done.

You need to fill in the 'budget' section for each category at the start of the month and then when a payment is made or you spend some money, you need to make a note of it in the 'actual' column. The worksheet will then show you the difference between what you think you're going to spend at the start of the month and what you actually spend.

The aim is to try and make the overall difference column balance to zero at the end of the month. This ensures that all your money is working hard for you and that it's being reinvested into your budget.

If the difference is negative, then you need to adjust your spending to reduce your expenses, or increase your income.

If the difference is positive, then you should think about how you can allocate that money by either paying off some of your debts, saving for a rainy day or investing in your future.

This spreadsheet has been created using Microsoft Office Excel 2003. It's simple and easy to use as well as quick to download.

How to download this budget worksheet

Monthly Personal Budget Worksheet (zip / xls)

Instructions to Download

Click on the link and save the zip file to your computer. Saving it to the desktop may be easiest for you but if you want to save it somewhere else do take note of where you saved it so that you can find it again.

Once saved, find it on your computer, double click on the zip folder to open it and you will either have an option to ‘extract all files’, or you will be able to double click on the actual xls file to open it. The worksheet file has been created as a Microsoft Excel 2003 worksheet.

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