The simple budget template as the name implies is just an easy budgeting template that ensures your finances are kept in order. The simple budget templates help users to achieve a short term goal of having enough money to cater for monthly bills and other smaller expenditure, however, there is nothing stopping it from being used in a large scale budget planning. The benefits of a simple budget as one that keeps things uncomplicated, automatically sets money aside for savings, pay your bills as at when due and ensures you have an accurate idea of how much you are spending every month .
Like every other budget template, the simple budget template is a straightforward and uncomplicated document just for the purpose of tracking income and expenses to avoid losing control of your spending. There are actually many formats that can be used for a simple budget. However, the most basic features involve the structure of the budget. Every basic simple budget should determine your income which should include salary, dividends, commission, and other sources of income. it should be able to estimate the required expenses like rent, insurance, car maintenance, utilities, debt payment, savings, subscription medical expenses, groceries etc. The third part to the simple budget is regarded as the bottom line which simply means the income minus the expenses.
People usually abstain from the word” simple” when talking about budgets. They believe budget can only be done by a financial expert or people who are very good in mathematics. However, this is not the case as simple budgets does not necessarily require complicated planning, detailed forms or even complex mathematics formula. In fact, the only thing you need to create a simple budget template is your expense and income records. The following step by step guide will offer an insight on how you can create a simple budget template successfully.
Step1
First of all, you are expected to collect the financial record regarding your income and expenses all in one place. You can use monthly, quarterly and annually as applicable in your own case.
Step2
Start by creating a new work file using any good program like Microsoft Excel.
Step3
Partition the file into two. You can place the expenses section in one part and the income section in another part.
Step4
Now put down all sources of your income in a typical month. List all the income types and put the corresponding amount. In cases where there are incomes that differ from month to month, it is better you approximate the average amount.
Step5
You can separate your expenses by making two expense lists. One should be your fixed expenses while the other can be discretional or variable expenses. For example, fixed expenses are expected to remain the same each month like the rent payment, home insurance premium and the loan payment while variable could be groceries, entertainment and gas.
Step6
Total your monthly expense and monthly income and using the figure to fix as the estimated budget for the next month.
Step7
You can calculate a part of your income you need monthly in order to pay your fixed expenses and divide the rest among your variable expenses.
Step8
When you have estimated the expenses on the budget, you can then make adjustments or budget cuts before tracking your actual spending on your simple budget template.
Step9
Subtract your actual spending from the estimated expenses in order to get the performance of your budget. It could be a savings or a loss.
Step10
Save your file and keep tracking your budget on the template to ensure it works perfectly.
1
If creating a simple budget template from scratch will be difficult, it is not out of place to download similar templates. However, you must ensure that any template used addresses your financial situations and cover your entire income and expense situations. You are at liberty to modify existing templates to suit your own peculiar situations.
2
Be disciplined enough to follow strictly your simple budget plans. Making a budget plan without any plan to strictly adhere to it will amount to a waste of time and resources.
3
Ensure all possible expense categories are captured and put a column for miscellaneous or “Other” to capture any situation that may arise after the budget is made.
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