Keeping track of your finances is no easy task, but there's no need to stress yourself out further by building your own budget templates (unless of course, you're a spreadsheet whiz). We've talked before about the necessity of making a budget, and provided ample tips for creating a budget, but it's hard to create a straightforward budget without first building a comprehensive budgeting spreadsheet.
Luckily, there are tons of FREE budget spreadsheets for every need available online, and they're available in a wide variety of printable, shareable, and downloadable formats. So whether you're building a family budget, a single person trying to save more, or a student looking to find some extra cash, we've rounded up some of the best budget spreadsheets available online. So give a few a test drive and see what works for you!
If you're attempting to wrangle your monthly expenses, Kiplinger has a handy spreadsheet that you can fill out online and then print or download to your computer. (Sticking a copy on your fridge door might go a long way towards helping everyone in your family stick to their spending goals.)
If Microsoft Excel is your preferred platform for organizing data, Microsoft offers a wide range of budgeting spreadsheets to meet your family's needs, all of which are available for download here. There are great templates for creating monthly household budgets, home construction budgets, and even holiday shopping budgets. Students will find Microsoft's ready-made college budget spreadsheet and college expense estimator especially useful. If you're still flying solo (financially speaking), there are several great personal budget spreadsheets for you too.
Gmail users might be more comfortable using Google Docs, and we found some great personal, household, and student budget templates available in Google's “Template Gallery” database. This database is chocked full of templates created and shared by other Google Docs users, as well as basic budgeting templates provided by Google Docs themselves. Each template is ranked by users who have already given them a go, which makes it easy to spot the best budgeting templates on offer.
If you're a devoted MAC user, you'll want to download Apple's Numbers app. Numbers is a spreadsheet app (and part of Apple's iWork suite), and it's loaded with prebuilt templates for all your budgeting needs. You can easily create attractive charts and graphs to help you better understand your budget, and you can view all of your data from any of your Apple devices. You can even download your Numbers spreadsheets as Excel files, or upload Excel files to edit in Numbers, all without having to download Microsoft Office.
WEB.1325.03.15
