How to Make a Budget Spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Excel

To make a budget spreadsheet, set up two tabs: a Budget tab that lists your income and spending categories with Budget, Actual and Difference columns, and a Transactions tab where you log what comes in and goes out. A SUMIF formula totals each category from the log into the Actual column, so the sheet shows at a glance where you are over or under plan. The same build works in Google Sheets and Excel, and you can reuse it every month.

Below is how to make a budget spreadsheet from a blank file: the layout, the steps, the exact formulas for both apps, and one full month worked through with real numbers.

What a Budget Spreadsheet Needs

A working budget has three parts:

• A month cell at the top, so the formulas know which month to total.
• The Budget tab: income rows first, then your spending categories in groups (bills, expenses, subscriptions, savings and debts), each with Budget, Actual and Difference columns and a subtotal per group.
• The Transactions tab: one row per purchase, paycheck or transfer, with a date, a description, a category and an amount.

The Budget tab is the plan and the scoreboard. The Transactions tab is the raw record. Keeping them apart means you never type totals by hand.

How to Make a Budget Spreadsheet Step by Step

1. Create the file and two tabs. In Google Sheets, type sheets.new in your browser’s address bar or click Blank spreadsheet. In Excel, choose File > New > Blank workbook. Double-click the tab names and rename them Budget and Transactions.
2. Set up the Transactions tab. Put Date in A1, Description in B1, Category in C1 and Amount in D1. Enter every amount as a positive number; the category tells the sheet whether it is income or spending. Our guide on how to track expenses in Google Sheets builds this log out with dropdowns, filter views and a pivot table, so here you only need the four columns.
3. Add the month cell. On the Budget tab, type Month in A1 and the first day of the month in B1, for example 3/1/2027.
4. Write the income rows. Put Category, Budget, Actual and Difference in A3 to D3. List each income source on its own row below (your paycheck, a partner’s paycheck, side income), then a Total income row.
5. Add the category groups. Under income, give each group a heading row: Bills, Expenses, Subscriptions, Savings and Debts. List the categories under each heading and end each group with a subtotal row. For ideas, use our budget categories list.
6. Fill in the Budget column. Start from the last two or three months of bank and card statements, not from guesses. Turn yearly bills into monthly amounts: if your car insurance is $1,320 a year, type =1320/12 and budget $110 a month.
7. Pull in the actuals and differences with the formulas in the next section.
8. Add totals at the bottom: Total out and Left to budget.

Savings and debt payments get rows like any bill. When you move $550 to your emergency fund, log it on the Transactions tab with the category Emergency fund. That way every dollar of income shows up somewhere in the plan.

Budget Spreadsheet Formulas for Google Sheets and Excel

The formulas below are identical in Google Sheets and Excel 2010 or later. They follow the layout of the worked month further down: income in rows 4 and 5, Total income in row 6, the Bills heading in row 8 and the first bill in row 9, with a blank row between groups. Change the row numbers to match your sheet and fill each formula down.

Actual, if you keep a separate Transactions tab for each month (C9):

=SUMIF(Transactions!$C:$C,$A9,Transactions!$D:$D)

Actual, if you keep one Transactions tab for the whole year (C9):

=SUMIFS(Transactions!$D:$D,Transactions!$C:$C,$A9,Transactions!$A:$A,">="&$B$1,Transactions!$A:$A,"<="&EOMONTH($B$1,0))

The SUMIFS version only counts rows dated between the first and last day of the month in B1. It is the better choice: you keep one log for the year and copy the Budget tab for each month, changing only B1.

Difference for spending rows (D9): =B9-C9. A positive number means you spent less than planned. A negative one means you went over.

Difference for income rows (D4): =C4-B4. Here a positive number means you earned more than planned.

Subtotals: =SUM(B9:B13) under each group, copied across to the Actual and Difference columns.

Total out: add the five subtotal cells, for example =B14+B21+B26+B32+B37 if your subtotals sit in those rows.

Left to budget: =B6-B39, total income budgeted minus total out budgeted. When it reads zero, every dollar of income has a job. That is the idea behind zero-based budgeting.

Share of budget used (optional, E9): =IF(B9=0,"",C9/B9), formatted as a percent.

Category names on the Budget tab and the Transactions tab must match exactly, or SUMIF counts nothing. “Dining out” and “Dining Out “ (with a trailing space) are different to a formula. A dropdown on the Category column that pulls from your Budget tab removes that problem.

A Worked Month: Budget vs Actual

Here is one month on a finished Budget tab. These are example numbers for a single person with a take-home paycheck and some side income.

Category	Budget	Actual	Difference
Paycheck (take-home)	$3,650	$3,650	$0
Side income	$400	$325	-$75
Total income	$4,050	$3,975	-$75
Rent	$1,400	$1,400	$0
Electric and gas	$140	$162	-$22
Internet	$60	$60	$0
Phone	$45	$45	$0
Car insurance	$110	$110	$0
Bills subtotal	$1,755	$1,777	-$22
Groceries	$520	$566	-$46
Gas	$150	$131	+$19
Dining out	$180	$214	-$34
Household and personal	$90	$72	+$18
Expenses subtotal	$940	$983	-$43
Streaming	$30	$30	$0
Gym	$40	$40	$0
Subscriptions subtotal	$70	$70	$0
Emergency fund	$550	$550	$0
Car repair fund	$75	$75	$0
Holiday fund	$100	$100	$0
Savings subtotal	$725	$725	$0
Credit card	$320	$320	$0
Student loan	$240	$240	$0
Debts subtotal	$560	$560	$0
Total out	$4,050	$4,115	-$65

The plan was balanced: $4,050 of income budgeted and $4,050 assigned, so Left to budget read $0. The month itself ended $140 short, because income came in $75 under plan and spending ran $65 over.

The Difference column shows exactly where. Three spending rows went over by a combined $102: groceries by $46, dining out by $34 and electric and gas by $22. Two rows came in under by a combined $37: gas by $19 and household by $18. The savings transfers and debt payments went out as planned, so the $140 came out of the checking account’s cushion.

That tells you what to change for next month, without guessing. Budget side income at the low end of what you usually earn, move a little from dining out to groceries, and set electric and gas from this season’s bills rather than last season’s. Our monthly budget review walks through setting next month’s numbers from this month’s actuals.

How to Make a Budget in Google Sheets vs Excel

The formulas match, but the menus do not. Here is where each step lives:

Task	Google Sheets	Excel
New file	sheets.new, or Blank spreadsheet	File > New > Blank workbook
Freeze the header row	View > Freeze > 1 row	View > Freeze Panes > Freeze Top Row
Show B1 as “March 2027”	Format > Number > Custom date and time	Format Cells (Ctrl+1, or Cmd+1 on a Mac) > Custom, type mmmm yyyy
Category dropdown	Insert > Dropdown, then Dropdown (from a range)	Data > Data Validation, Allow: List
Highlight overspending	Format > Conditional formatting > Custom formula is =$D9<0	Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule > Use a formula, =$D9<0
Copy the month	Right-click the tab > Duplicate	Right-click the tab > Move or Copy > Create a copy
Share with a partner	Share button, give edit access	Save to OneDrive, then Share

For the dropdown source, point it at the category cells on your Budget tab, such as =Budget!$A$9:$A$37. Heading and subtotal rows will show up in the list too, so either skip them when you pick or keep a clean category list in a spare column.

Budget Spreadsheet Tips for Beginners

• Use whole dollars. Round budget amounts to the nearest $5 or $10. Cents add typing without making the plan more accurate.
• Start broad. One Household row beats six tiny ones you never fill. Split a category later if you want to see inside it.
• Log weekly. Ten minutes on a Sunday keeps the Actual column honest.
• Fix overspending by moving money, not by deleting it. If groceries run $46 over, lower another row by $46 so Left to budget stays at zero.
• Keep last month’s tab. Your history is what makes next month’s numbers realistic.

When a Ready-Made Template Saves Time

The sheet above covers one month of planning well. It gets harder when you want recurring bills scheduled across all twelve months, balances for each bank account and credit card with transfers between them, a budget by paycheck instead of by month, or a bill calendar you can print. Each of those is its own build.

Our budget spreadsheet for Google Sheets and Excel has those parts already built, along with twelve monthly tabs and a dashboard, so you set up your categories once and log from there. If you are also weighing a spreadsheet against an app, read budget spreadsheet vs app first.

Build the Budget tab tonight, fill in the Budget column from last month’s statements, and log every transaction for one week before you judge a single number.