So I'm 66 years old and for the first time ever this is a computer based budget tutorial I can actually follow. I am retiring sometime in the next two years and need to actually track my finances in detail for the first time ever. I have always done OK just generally knowing what is going on with my finances up to now but times are changing. I love this video!
thank you so much for this, as a 33 year old millennial starting my first business and who studied philosophy - I can't tell you how helpful this is, in a practical and grounding way. I suppose I should have learned basic finance earlier. But as the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now. 🤟😁
This was outstanding. I recently retired because where I worked for 30 years closed. I am not old enough to collect social security and am living on savings, which I will have to be extra careful with to make it last for the next few years. This is a huge help, and I've downloaded the mobile app, too. Thank you so much.
Thank goodness someone made a video for explaining this template. I really appreciate you Michael for taking the time out and putting effort to explain how this works. I have learned a life skill in a short amount of time. Thanks to you! 💝
This video is awesome! I have been putting off budgeting for a long time because I was always intimidated by the process - but you've made everything so clear and straightforward with the template! Thank you so much, Michael!
So much info in a relatively short video. Thank you! For someone who has always experienced a mental block with spreadsheets, this video made me excited about befriending the essential tool. Thank you!!
This is amazing! I came to TH-cam searching for tutorials because I looked at the Google budgeting spreadsheets and had no idea how to even get started with them. I am so glad I found this video - I'm all set up and ready for the month. Thank you!!!
Really excellent video. My wife and I toggled back and forth between your video and our budget in google sheets. Thansk for doing this. Very much appreciated
Thank You! This was exactly what I needed to simplify our budget. I am not comfortable with this type of thing but your video was perfect! Great explanation and detail without unnecessary talking.
Wow, super helpful for someone who is terrified of Excel spreadsheets - this budget template is so very useful with clear instructions which are super easy to follow - thank you!
thank you so much, bro. When I first used the spreadsheet I was confused as to why it wasn't working the way I wanted it to but after watching this vid I saw where I went wrong. Thanks.
Thank you very much!! I'm looking forward to starting 2024 with a vision and a plan to follow in order to stop procrastinating and finally achieve my goals!
Dude- This was so incredibly helpful! Thank you so very much! I have literally never budgeted before so thank you so so so much! Give yourself a raise my friend!
Man! You are awesome! I was miserable with how I was tracking my expenses. Belive it or not, in a .txt file LOL. This is so great. Thank you for a hundred times.
Thank you for this clear and simple explanation of how to track money and budgeting. As most of them have stated I also had trouble using mobile apps to keep track of my money and cannot get a clear overview. Thank you again for explaining this clearly I am yet to try this out and it seems it's very simple with also having the ability to record with the phone which I did not know much about until you explained. Seems everything can be recorded and transferred to other sheets automatically. Great work! Thanks a lot for taking your time to explain this to us
This is super super helpful!! I also have my transactions upload automatically by using an IFTT tie-in from my banking app to google sheets, which adds a row to the spreadsheet every time I use my card :)
I tried using the budget template on my own and was unsuccessful...couldn't figure it out. Your video is an excellent tool to get this started. Thank you!!
First, this was so helpful! I have a question about fixed expenses that are not monthly… and where/how you recommend tracking those and planning for them. I guess it’s similar to others’ questions about how to save up and track accruing money.. or rolling over leftover money.
This has helped a lot over the last year, thank you! I was wondering if there is a way one can add another section (apart from savings and expenses) for savings? I would like it seperate from expenses and savings since it doesn't really fit in either category.
@@alisa_ilse great question. You could make a separate sheet for savings. What I do is list “transfer to savings” or “savings goal” as an expense. Then I log it as an expense on the last day of the month (assuming I have enough in my budget to save). Then I track the savings over time using a separate simple sheet and my banking apps.
I'd love a video on how to tweak this to make it work for us. I like when dates auto go in order, so I can enter the expenses in any order and then they auto go in order... is there a way to do that?
I zero it out because I don't use it. But you could use it if you wanted to roughly track your net worth? I do that with the Mint and Personal Capital apps.
Thank you so much for this! My only question is this. Why do you enter the amounts on the copy? Then you have to re-enter all of your expenses every month, yes?
Hi. You can do it either way. I like to fill in the fields every month and use the previous month’s results to inform that. Those with more stable spending could have more fields in the copy version filled in to save time.
Hi, thank you for the informative video, it helps me alot. One quick question, what does "starting balance" on the summary mean? And do I need to keep it 0 monthly? thank you for helping
If you use the income side, definitely have paychecks. But you can add other income and I would recommend that. Even things like bank account interest on your savings count as income! If you need more rows, you add them the same way as I showed for expenses.
Love this video but what about annual expenses that are fixed? currently, i calculate them down to a monthly amount and add them to fixed expenses. is there a better way?
Hello Michael, would you be able to explain how to add in if you are putting money into a savings account each month for a specific event/trip/etc.. Right now I have them just as a transaction with their own category but it still shows that I am spending that money each month rather than saving and I just keep track of the savings on a different tab. BUT I would love it if there was a way to incorporate that into the summary sheet without having another sheet to track. TIA!
Thanks for the awesome and clear tutorial. This will make things so much easier! Do you have any suggestions for how to sort the expense and income line items (transactions page) by date automatically? I can see things getting out of order quickly, and having them arranged by date would make cross-checking with bank statements much easier. Thanks again!
Hello Michael! Thank you very much for teaching us about this free Google Spreadsheet. I had a question about what the "opening balance" that is inserted in cell L8 would be. I'm still lost on this concept, could you explain it better and give an example?
I don't use that field (I think I mentioned in the video, but maybe not.) I guess you could use it as a starting balance for the month. For me, I blank it out and just log transactions with this spreadsheet.
Thanks for the video! How do you track savings? Is it first deducted from the Expense side and then added to the Income side? In your example, I see you have a deduction for transfer to savings, but I didn't see an entry on the income side. I want to make sure I'm doing it right. Also, is your starting balance whatever is left over from the previous month, if any, correct? Thanks, I like this! I've struck BUDGET GOLD!
I just use it as a monthly expense tracker. I use Mint and Empower to track net worth over time, which is why I don't have fields for balances of my checking and savings accounts anywhere. However, you can use the spreadsheet to track money over time or play around with the annual budget version in Google Sheets. Let's say you decide to use the starting balance field -- enter whatever money you have in your bank accounts. Then, do the budget as normal for the month to track expenses. Then, adjust the starting balance for the following month based on how much you were over/under the previous month.
Hi, first of all, thank you for this video!! My partner and I have set up our own with our limited knowledge of google sheets/excel and we are shifting to the one youve showed! Took me 15 minutes to get it all done w your tutorial. Love it. However, I have a few queries if you dont mind sharing the way of doing it: 1. Is it possible to have two transaction tab with only one summary? (One transaction tab for each of us however we would like our summary to be combined) - i tried to copy the transaction tab however the functions dont connect to the summary tab like the first transaction tab. 2. How do I have a continuous system on month to month basis? Meaning, any balances are carried forward to next month’s ‘automatically’? Or needs manual transfer still? Btw, would really appreciate more series like this for intermediate and advanced! Or elaboration or more detailed system of the beginner one. Love it! Thanks, Illy
To answer your first question, you could create separate categories for each person. Lunch money person 1. Lunch money person 2. I don’t know another way. As for question 2, I get this a lot but that’s what I use Empower for. I only use this template for monthly expense tracking. I will look into it.
I appreciate this. Instead of making a copy of the whole sheet for every month, will this work if i just add a new sheet for everyone month? I would rather have every month in one file and possibly add a savings sheet and end of year sheet letting me know when i went over budget as well as how much i actually saved. If anyone knows if this is possible while still using the same format please let me know. I do like this budget and the few edits you made, just not a fan of having 12 different files.
Yes! You can control+select both the Summary tab and the Transaction tab and then select duplicate. This will make it so the new set works independently from the original but still within the same document.
My Google sheets budget comes with numbers in the "actual" column and when I go to edit it just has a formula. I can't figure out how to correct it but maybe I can just delete those rows. This video is great! I'm gonna continue watching now 😊
This has been very helpful, thank you! I just have a question, if anyone knows. Why put fixed expenses as part of planned expenses? It just adds my total fixed expenses to my itemized expenses which doubles things under Planned Totals. I feel like I must be missing something?
Thank you for the great tutorial. Everything went smoothly as I followed your instructions step by step, but when I tried to add the extra expense categories using the data validation tool it didn't add the extras like it did in yours. What am I doing wrong? I tried it several times with no luck. Will I need to start over and create a whole new thing or is there a way to fix it now that I'm on the last step in the process? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you :)
So I'm 66 years old and for the first time ever this is a computer based budget tutorial I can actually follow. I am retiring sometime in the next two years and need to actually track my finances in detail for the first time ever. I have always done OK just generally knowing what is going on with my finances up to now but times are changing. I love this video!
I noticed he has a written version of the tutorial in the video description, if that would make it easier for you.
@@ProdiJoee Thanks!
@ProdiJoee I feel pretty dumb as I realize TH-cam lets you control the speed. All I have to do is slow it down 25%.... I deleted my updated comment.
How can i change the dollar symbol to naira?
If i want to base the income and expense on termly bases on can i change it?
@@FatimaOgunbona select the amount you want to change then:
click on format
click on number
select your currency
thank you so much for this, as a 33 year old millennial starting my first business and who studied philosophy - I can't tell you how helpful this is, in a practical and grounding way. I suppose I should have learned basic finance earlier. But as the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now. 🤟😁
This was outstanding. I recently retired because where I worked for 30 years closed. I am not old enough to collect social security and am living on savings, which I will have to be extra careful with to make it last for the next few years. This is a huge help, and I've downloaded the mobile app, too. Thank you so much.
Thank goodness someone made a video for explaining this template.
I really appreciate you Michael for taking the time out and putting effort to explain how this works. I have learned a life skill in a short amount of time. Thanks to you! 💝
Wonderful and easy to follow explanation! Great job Micheal. Greatly appreciated!!!
This video is awesome! I have been putting off budgeting for a long time because I was always intimidated by the process - but you've made everything so clear and straightforward with the template! Thank you so much, Michael!
I'm up and running in 10 minutes. That's pretty awesome, Michael Saves!
So much info in a relatively short video. Thank you! For someone who has always experienced a mental block with spreadsheets, this video made me excited about befriending the essential tool. Thank you!!
🔥 You Just made my budget journey so much easier. Thank you 🔥
This is amazing! I came to TH-cam searching for tutorials because I looked at the Google budgeting spreadsheets and had no idea how to even get started with them. I am so glad I found this video - I'm all set up and ready for the month. Thank you!!!
Really excellent video. My wife and I toggled back and forth between your video and our budget in google sheets. Thansk for doing this. Very much appreciated
Thank You! This was exactly what I needed to simplify our budget. I am not comfortable with this type of thing but your video was perfect! Great explanation and detail without unnecessary talking.
This made me understand so much better I was lost but now im super excited to start budgeting.
Wow, super helpful for someone who is terrified of Excel spreadsheets - this budget template is so very useful with clear instructions which are super easy to follow - thank you!
thank you so much, bro.
When I first used the spreadsheet I was confused as to why it wasn't working the way I wanted it to but after watching this vid I saw where I went wrong.
Thanks.
Thank you so much. I have been trying to do this for hours and you just helped me so much.
Thank you very much!! I'm looking forward to starting 2024 with a vision and a plan to follow in order to stop procrastinating and finally achieve my goals!
Thank you so so much for this Michael! I've been looking for something like this for years now! Thankyou!
Thank you! I never knew this existed and now I'm using it and I love it!
This is literally GOLD.
Thanks, man.
This was so helpful! Thanks for walking through everything step by step!
Dude- This was so incredibly helpful! Thank you so very much! I have literally never budgeted before so thank you so so so much! Give yourself a raise my friend!
This included nice clear and concise instructions, Thanks,👍 Michael.
Man! You are awesome! I was miserable with how I was tracking my expenses. Belive it or not, in a .txt file LOL.
This is so great. Thank you for a hundred times.
Thank you so much for this very detailed and easy to follow tutorial! You explain things so well and I appreciate it! Thank you!
This was so helpful! Very simple and easy to follow. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
Clear, Concise and to the point. Great job. I installed the app, so easy to load transactions as they happen. Yahoo!!
Thank you for this clear and simple explanation of how to track money and budgeting. As most of them have stated I also had trouble using mobile apps to keep track of my money and cannot get a clear overview. Thank you again for explaining this clearly I am yet to try this out and it seems it's very simple with also having the ability to record with the phone which I did not know much about until you explained. Seems everything can be recorded and transferred to other sheets automatically.
Great work! Thanks a lot for taking your time to explain this to us
Damn this was fast, short, and very informative. much thanks man
You saved my life with this one. Thanks a lot!!!!
great tutorial!
Thank you, Michael.
Thank you somuch for this tutorial! It was INCREDIBLY helpful!!!
Thank you soooo much! You've helped me a lot man
Great video and explanation Michael! Thank you!!
This video was amazing, excellent job! Thank you so much!
SO helpful - thank you!!
Super awesome tutorial. Very grateful for your time and effort!😎👍👍🙏🙏Thank you very much!
This is really a great video. Thank you for sharing this. I’m not a pro at this yet but with your help I am off to a good start. Thanks you
This has helped me so much!!!! THANK YOUUUUUUU
Really helpful video, thanks for posting !
Thank you for this video!
Great, I just started using it last week, Then I found your tutorial
Thank you very much for this tutorial. It was very helpful and easy to understand.
This was incredibly helpful! thank you so much!
I had this budget template so screwed up before I found this video, LOL. Thank you so much!
This is amazing, thank you!
This was great! I am on the way to financial freedom. thank you so much :)
THANK YOU! Needed this
Great video !
Thank you.
Great sharing. Thank you,
This is legit. Thank you.
Brilliant. Thanks so very much.
you made this very easy . Thank you!
Super helpful. Thank you 😄
This is great thanks
Thank you! Much appreciated!
Huge help Thank you!!! If I wanted to make this also a weekly- is it as simply as just changing income to weekly/the text to weekly.
Yes you could do that!
Very helpful video.😊😊
This is super super helpful!! I also have my transactions upload automatically by using an IFTT tie-in from my banking app to google sheets, which adds a row to the spreadsheet every time I use my card :)
Thank you. So easy to follow.
So goooood! Thank you!!!!!!
I tried using the budget template on my own and was unsuccessful...couldn't figure it out. Your video is an excellent tool to get this started. Thank you!!
Thanks I spent a whole day to find you
First, this was so helpful! I have a question about fixed expenses that are not monthly… and where/how you recommend tracking those and planning for them. I guess it’s similar to others’ questions about how to save up and track accruing money.. or rolling over leftover money.
I have an old blog post/video on this topic! michaelsaves.com/save-money/google-sheets-budget-irregular-expenses/
This has helped a lot over the last year, thank you! I was wondering if there is a way one can add another section (apart from savings and expenses) for savings? I would like it seperate from expenses and savings since it doesn't really fit in either category.
@@alisa_ilse great question. You could make a separate sheet for savings. What I do is list “transfer to savings” or “savings goal” as an expense. Then I log it as an expense on the last day of the month (assuming I have enough in my budget to save). Then I track the savings over time using a separate simple sheet and my banking apps.
Great Video! but what do I do the next month, do I have to make a new sheet??
Yes, that is what I do. It's an expense tracking tool for me. I use Empower for big picture -- net worth tracking.
@@MichaelSavesOk thanks 👌🏽
thank you for such a great video, how can we change Currency?
I'd love a video on how to tweak this to make it work for us. I like when dates auto go in order, so I can enter the expenses in any order and then they auto go in order... is there a way to do that?
Thank you!
Can you discuss the Start Balance and End Balance section?
I zero it out because I don't use it. But you could use it if you wanted to roughly track your net worth? I do that with the Mint and Personal Capital apps.
@@MichaelSaves In the Get Started section, the sheet says enter in cell L8. Enter what? My account balance at the first of the month?
@@gregpulley421 this video I explain my method. I ignore that section.
thx
Thanks
Thank you so much for this! I'm just having a hard time on my iPad. It seems some of the functions aren't available 😢
Thank you so much for this! My only question is this. Why do you enter the amounts on the copy? Then you have to re-enter all of your expenses every month, yes?
Hi. You can do it either way. I like to fill in the fields every month and use the previous month’s results to inform that. Those with more stable spending could have more fields in the copy version filled in to save time.
Great video. Do you have one or plan to make one for using Sheets to track investments? Thanks so much.
I use the Personal Capital app to track my investments and net worth. Mint is another free option.
Thanks for the great video!!! I'm wondering if there is a good way to log transactions in mixed currency?
Great video Michael, thanks! Quick question, how do I change the currency tp £?
I have a separate video here: th-cam.com/video/SKX7WaMos9M/w-d-xo.html
@@MichaelSavesPlus Star! Thank you
Nice Works Michael. is there a way to use only one sheet for every month instead of make a copy ?
I’m not sure of a way to do that.
Is there a way to add the date the bills are due on the fixed expenses page?
You could add another column for that!
Hi, thank you for the informative video, it helps me alot. One quick question, what does "starting balance" on the summary mean? And do I need to keep it 0 monthly? thank you for helping
I zero it out. I guess you could use it if you had carryover money from a previous month. I just don’t use the sheet that way.
So under the income section on paychecks we only put paychecks or should we do a total monthly income? As well?
If you use the income side, definitely have paychecks. But you can add other income and I would recommend that. Even things like bank account interest on your savings count as income! If you need more rows, you add them the same way as I showed for expenses.
Love this video but what about annual expenses that are fixed? currently, i calculate them down to a monthly amount and add them to fixed expenses. is there a better way?
This is what I do!
Hello Michael, would you be able to explain how to add in if you are putting money into a savings account each month for a specific event/trip/etc.. Right now I have them just as a transaction with their own category but it still shows that I am spending that money each month rather than saving and I just keep track of the savings on a different tab. BUT I would love it if there was a way to incorporate that into the summary sheet without having another sheet to track.
TIA!
For this I do Transfer to Savings as a transaction line and keep it as part of my expenses.
Thanks for the awesome and clear tutorial. This will make things so much easier!
Do you have any suggestions for how to sort the expense and income line items (transactions page) by date automatically? I can see things getting out of order quickly, and having them arranged by date would make cross-checking with bank statements much easier. Thanks again!
I just add the date to the transactions tab as I record expenses in real time.
Hello Michael! Thank you very much for teaching us about this free Google Spreadsheet. I had a question about what the "opening balance" that is inserted in cell L8 would be. I'm still lost on this concept, could you explain it better and give an example?
I don't use that field (I think I mentioned in the video, but maybe not.) I guess you could use it as a starting balance for the month. For me, I blank it out and just log transactions with this spreadsheet.
Thanks for the video! How do you track savings? Is it first deducted from the Expense side and then added to the Income side? In your example, I see you have a deduction for transfer to savings, but I didn't see an entry on the income side. I want to make sure I'm doing it right. Also, is your starting balance whatever is left over from the previous month, if any, correct? Thanks, I like this! I've struck BUDGET GOLD!
I just use it as a monthly expense tracker. I use Mint and Empower to track net worth over time, which is why I don't have fields for balances of my checking and savings accounts anywhere. However, you can use the spreadsheet to track money over time or play around with the annual budget version in Google Sheets. Let's say you decide to use the starting balance field -- enter whatever money you have in your bank accounts. Then, do the budget as normal for the month to track expenses. Then, adjust the starting balance for the following month based on how much you were over/under the previous month.
Hi, first of all, thank you for this video!! My partner and I have set up our own with our limited knowledge of google sheets/excel and we are shifting to the one youve showed! Took me 15 minutes to get it all done w your tutorial. Love it.
However, I have a few queries if you dont mind sharing the way of doing it:
1. Is it possible to have two transaction tab with only one summary? (One transaction tab for each of us however we would like our summary to be combined) - i tried to copy the transaction tab however the functions dont connect to the summary tab like the first transaction tab.
2. How do I have a continuous system on month to month basis? Meaning, any balances are carried forward to next month’s ‘automatically’? Or needs manual transfer still?
Btw, would really appreciate more series like this for intermediate and advanced! Or elaboration or more detailed system of the beginner one. Love it!
Thanks,
Illy
To answer your first question, you could create separate categories for each person. Lunch money person 1. Lunch money person 2. I don’t know another way. As for question 2, I get this a lot but that’s what I use Empower for. I only use this template for monthly expense tracking. I will look into it.
Love the Video but i have a question. What is the starting budget in L8 used for is it used as a saving amount or is it for your salary?
I don't use that column. But some people do use it for like a carryover balance from the previous month or a savings total. Up to you.
@@MichaelSavesPlus thank you
is there anyway to make the expense diff roll over to next month?
Question for the “starting balance” tab rather than zero can you just put whatever money you have at the beginning of the month?
Of course. That works!
Thank you so much for the tutorial, it's very useful. Is there a way of changing the $ symbol to £ symbol?
Yes! th-cam.com/video/SKX7WaMos9M/w-d-xo.html
I appreciate this. Instead of making a copy of the whole sheet for every month, will this work if i just add a new sheet for everyone month? I would rather have every month in one file and possibly add a savings sheet and end of year sheet letting me know when i went over budget as well as how much i actually saved. If anyone knows if this is possible while still using the same format please let me know. I do like this budget and the few edits you made, just not a fan of having 12 different files.
Yes! You can control+select both the Summary tab and the Transaction tab and then select duplicate. This will make it so the new set works independently from the original but still within the same document.
Thanku
My Google sheets budget comes with numbers in the "actual" column and when I go to edit it just has a formula. I can't figure out how to correct it but maybe I can just delete those rows. This video is great! I'm gonna continue watching now 😊
This has been very helpful, thank you! I just have a question, if anyone knows. Why put fixed expenses as part of planned expenses? It just adds my total fixed expenses to my itemized expenses which doubles things under Planned Totals.
I feel like I must be missing something?
I love this spreadsheet, but how do you manage having two cards? Is there a way to do a "transfer" option and all amounts add up?
Does each month have its own sheet or can you have them all on one master sheet?
I create a new sheet every month
Thank you for the great tutorial. Everything went smoothly as I followed your instructions step by step, but when I tried to add the extra expense categories using the data validation tool it didn't add the extras like it did in yours. What am I doing wrong? I tried it several times with no luck. Will I need to start over and create a whole new thing or is there a way to fix it now that I'm on the last step in the process? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you :)
You may need to start over. I have written instructions here as well: michaelsaves.com/budgeting/google-sheets-budget-template/
Can we change the formula to be more accurate to account for cents, not rounded to whole dollars?
I round to dollars, but I believe you can! Here's how: support.google.com/docs/answer/56470?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop