Free Tool
Free Monthly Budget Planner
(Google Sheets Template)
After calculating your take-home pay, plug those numbers into this free budget template to see exactly where your money goes each month.
Monthly Budget Planner
3 tabs: Income, Budget by Category, and Summary with surplus/deficit tracking. Pre-built categories — just fill in your numbers.
Open Budget Planner →Opens in Google Sheets — free, make a copy to edit
How to Use It
Open the template and go to File → Make a Copy to save it to your own Google Drive.
Enter your monthly take-home pay on the Income tab (use the calculator below if you're not sure).
Fill in your monthly expenses by category on the Budget tab — Housing, Food, Transportation, and so on.
Review the Summary tab to see your total surplus or deficit and how spending is distributed by category.
Adjust category budgets until the template shows a surplus — then stick to it for 30 days.
What's Inside the Template
Tab 1 — Income
Enter your pay frequency and take-home amount. The template handles monthly conversion so all tabs stay in sync.
Tab 2 — Budget
8 spending categories — Housing, Transportation, Food, Health, Savings, Debt, Personal, Miscellaneous. Each has a Budget vs. Actual column.
Tab 3 — Summary
Total income vs. total expenses, monthly surplus or deficit, percentage of income by category, and a simple bar chart.
Step 0
Don't know your exact take-home pay?
Use the calculator to find your net pay after federal taxes, state taxes, insurance, and deductions — then plug that number into the budget template.
Want Automatic Budget Tracking?
These apps connect to your bank and categorize spending automatically — no manual entry required.
$14.99/mo or $99/yr · Zero-based budgeting, serious savers
$13/mo · Apple users, automated tracking
$14.99/mo or $99/yr · Couples, shared finances