How To Create Your First Working Budget With Excel Or Pen And Paper

Written by Sam on April 9, 2010 – 9:19 am -

This video shows how to create your first working budget with excel. If you want to use pen and paper I would recommend printing out a blank copy of my Working Budget Excel spreadsheet. You can get a free copy by subscribing to my newsletter on the right. You could also create your own spreadsheet if you know how to use Excel or another spreadsheet program.

The advantage of doing a budget exclusively in Excel is that it’s pretty straight forward and you only have to deal with a single software tool. The downside is that you have to calculate and enter all your expenses manually which not only takes a long time, but can result in mistakes. But if this approach works best for you, check out the screencast below.

Overall, I recommend using You Need A Budget (YNAB) software for your budget. Check out my YNAB review or my YNAB overview screencast for more information.


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How To Create Your First Working Budget With Quicken And Excel

Written by Sam on April 8, 2010 – 9:23 am -

To start off, if you haven’t viewed Emily’s screencast on using Quicken with your zero-based budget, you’ll want to do that first.

You can receive a copy of the Working Budget excel file shown in the screencasts below by subscribing to my newsletter on the right.

Step 1 – Set up your accounts

If you choose to use Quicken to keep track of your money, I’m going to assume you already use Quicken and know how to set up your accounts. If you don’t already use Quicken, I would recommend using You Need A Budget software. You can read my You Need A Budget Review or watch my screencast You Need A Budget Overview.

Step 1 is to simply set up your accounts in Quicken so do that first.

Step 2 – Allocate existing account balances

Allocate any existing account balances. There are three general ways to make your allocations.

  1. Funds are reserved for a specific purpose. If you already have a specific use in mind for the funds in your accounts, allocate them accordingly. For example, you may have some money reserved for a large purchase or vacation.
  2. Use funds for this month’s budget. If you’re starting your budget mid-month or are tight financially, you may need to use some or all of the money in your account for this month’s budget. If that’s the case start allocating the money according to the priorities you established in your Master Budget.
  3. Use the funds for next month’s budget. If funds are neither reserved for a specific purpose nor are needed for this month’s budget, put them in a “buffer” category and start building up a month’s worth of expenses so you don’t have to live from paycheck to paycheck. It will also will act as an insurance policy to ensure you don’t overdraw on your account

You’ll want to allocate funds in your Working Budget and within Quicken. Watch the screencasts below for more details.

Step 3 – Budget your income

As you receive your paychecks, enter them and allocate the total amount into your budget categories according to the priorities you established using your Master Budget. Allocate your income in both your Working Budget excel document and in Quicken. See the screencasts below.

Step 4 – Print your budget.

If you have a buffer of one full month’s worth of expenses and can budget the whole month at once, print the Working Budget once all the funds are allocated. If you are allocating paycheck to paycheck, print out your Working Budget each time a new paycheck is received and allocated. Put the print outs into your financial binder.

Step 5 – Entering expenses.

You don’t need to enter expenses into your Working Budget until the end of the month when you’re ready to reconcile your budget. You can, if needed, enter transactions throughout the month into Quicken. You should do this if you are very tight and need to keep tabs on your accounts to ensure you don’t overdraw.

Reconciling

In a couple of weeks I’ll detail how to reconcile your budget at the end of the month. Until then you don’t need to worry too much about entering transactions unless you are very tight financially and risk overdrawing your account.

Conclusion

That’s it you are now up and running on your first working budget using Quicken and Excel. If you want a copy of the Working Budget spreadsheet, just subscribe to the newsletter and you’ll be automatically emailed a link to it.


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Zero-based budgeting with Quicken

Written by Sam on April 8, 2010 – 9:21 am -

For years my wife and I had to make due with trying to make Quicken work using a zero-based budget. While Quicken simply isn’t made for zero-based budgeting, we did find a cool hack that lets us keep track of our money in a way very similar to a zero-based budget. It’s kind of like zero-based accounting.

Using this method combined with a zero-based budget spreadsheet, we were able to get the control we needed. In the screencast below, my wife Emily takes you through an overview of this hack and how it works.

For those ready to create their working budget, you need to watch this video first before you read about how to create your first working budget using Quicken and Excel


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Posted in 12 Weeks to Fiscal Fitness, Budgeting | 1 Comment »

How to create a zero-based budget

Written by Sam on August 12, 2006 – 1:41 pm -

In my last post, I covered why most budgets don’t work and how to fix them. One of the ways to make your budget work is to create a zero-based budget. Today’s post outlines how to create your first zero-based budget. Over the next few weeks I’ll be addressing various aspects of creating and managing a budget. Let’s start with the basics. Some of these steps may seem obvious or simplistic. But for those who just can’t seem to get a budget started, I hope to give you some step-by-step detail that will help make creating a budget easier.

Read more »


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Posted in Budget, Budgeting, Budgets, Finances, Money, Personal Finance, Tools | 73 Comments »

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