I know I've posted shots of my budgeting spreadsheets before, but it's been awhile, and plus I occasionally add new little widgets to calculate the minutiae of various aspects of my personal finances. I thought it might be somewhat interesting and perhaps even helpful to repost all of my most-used spreadsheets and talk about them a little bit.
This is my most crucial budgeting tool, my Number Crunch worksheet. It's a real-time snapshot of where my checking account is, and where it will be as each expense comes through.
I start with the current balance, then add in the pending authorizations and show the available balance. The first few items (the ones without dates) are sort of like envelopes--expenses that are coming up but I'm not sure when; deposits I need to put in for spending-money purchases one of us made with the debit card; budget categories like groceries or healthcare that I subtract from as purchases are made.
After that are upcoming income and expenses and the dates I expect them to come through. The far-right column shows what the checking account balance will look like if/when these expenses and income hit the account.
I project out for 2-3 months, and adjust things when unexpected income or expenses come up. If more income comes in (like OT), I drop that into one of the savings items, which is why they vary.
I always try to get the budget to balance to $20 at the end. I used to do $0.00, but that was stressful. $20 makes me feel like we're not dependent on everything working out to the penny. It's strictly a psychological thing, since there is a lot of flexibiliy (i.e., "wants" that can be eliminated, savings that can be reduced, budget surpluses in some categories such as healthcare).
Personal finance tools: No. 1 - Number Crunch
May 4th, 2009 at 04:27 pm
May 4th, 2009 at 04:35 pm 1241454956
May 5th, 2009 at 12:21 am 1241482866