TL;DR:
A useful budget has three parts: income, fixed costs and spending categories, each with a planned and an actual number.
Log transactions on one tab and let SUMIF add them up by category, so you never retype totals.
Copy the sheet to make a new monthly tab, and compare planned against actual at the end of the month.
Most budgets fail because they are too detailed to keep up. A short sheet you update weekly beats a clever one you abandon in week two. This guide builds a plain monthly budget that works the same in Excel and Google Sheets, with every number checked.
This is a spreadsheet exercise, not financial advice. The figures are made-up examples, so use your own.
Decide what the sheet has to answer
A monthly budget answers two questions. Before the month: how do I plan to split my income? After the month: where did it actually go, and how far was that from the plan?
That points to a layout with four columns on a Summary area: Category, Planned, Actual and Difference. The categories are grouped into income, fixed costs (rent, phone, transport pass: they barely change) and spending categories (groceries, eating out, fun: they vary). Keep spending categories to a handful. Eight categories you track beat twenty you ignore.
A monthly tab, and a place for transactions
Give every month its own tab named like 2026-11. When the month ends, copy the tab, rename it, clear the Actual numbers and update the Planned ones. Old months stay as a record you can look back on.
Add one more tab called Transactions with three columns: Date, Category and Amount. Every purchase goes on its own row. The category name must match the budget category exactly, including spelling, because the formula will match text.
Step by step
List the categories: In column A of the month tab, type the income line, then the fixed costs, then the spending categories, with a blank row between groups.
Fill in Planned: In column B, type the amount you plan to receive or spend for each line. Income goes in as a positive number.
Add Actual with SUMIF: In column C, use
=SUMIF(Transactions!B:B, A5, Transactions!C:C)for a category in A5. It adds the amounts in column C wherever column B equals that category.Add Difference: In column D, enter
=C5-B5for spending lines. A positive number means you spent more than planned.Total each group and the month: Use
=SUM(B5:B7)style formulas under each group, then compute what is left: income minus all spending.
Worked example: income, fixed costs and spending categories
Say a month has an income of 2400. Fixed costs are rent, phone and transport. Spending categories are groceries, eating out and fun, and you also set savings aside as a line so the money has somewhere to go.
Line | Planned | Actual | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
Income | 2400 | 2400 | 0 |
Rent | 900 | 900 | 0 |
Phone | 40 | 40 | 0 |
Transport | 80 | 95 | +15 |
Fixed costs and transport subtotal | 1020 | 1035 | +15 |
Groceries | 320 | 351 | +31 |
Eating out | 120 | 164 | +44 |
Fun | 140 | 112 | −28 |
Spending subtotal | 580 | 627 | +47 |
Savings | 600 | 600 | 0 |
Total out | 2200 | 2262 | +62 |
Left over | 200 | 138 | −62 |
Check the arithmetic. Fixed costs planned: 900 + 40 + 80 = 1020. Actual: 900 + 40 + 95 = 1035. Spending planned: 320 + 120 + 140 = 580. Actual: 351 + 164 + 112 = 627. Total out planned: 1020 + 580 + 600 = 2200, so 2400 − 2200 = 200 is left. Actual: 1035 + 627 + 600 = 2262, so 2400 − 2262 = 138 is left.
The differences must agree, too. The line differences are +15, +31, +44 and −28, and 15 + 31 + 44 − 28 = 62, which equals 2262 − 2200. The leftover drops by the same 62 (200 − 138). If those did not match, a formula would be pointing at the wrong cells.
The Groceries Actual of 351 comes from three rows on the Transactions tab: 128.50 + 97.25 + 125.25 = 351.00. That is what SUMIF is doing for you. You type each receipt once, and the monthly tab does the adding.
Reading planned against actual
The useful line is the Difference column. Eating out is 44 over plan, while Fun is 28 under. The sheet does not scold you. It shows you the pattern, and next month you decide whether to move the plan or change the habit.
To see the difference at a glance, you can add a conditional formatting rule that colors positive spending differences a pale red. Keep it to that one rule.
Mistakes to avoid
Category spelling. Groceries and Grocery are two categories to SUMIF. A dropdown list in the Category column of the Transactions tab prevents this.
Typing totals instead of formulas. A typed total does not change when a transaction changes.
Whole-column ranges mixed with header rows. Whole-column SUMIF is fine, but make sure the header text is not itself a category name.
No place for irregular costs. Birthdays, repairs and annual fees will happen. Add a Miscellaneous line and a small planned amount, or the leftover will always look worse than expected.
Planning to the last unit. Leaving a little leftover in the plan, as in the example, makes the sheet easier to live with.
Not advice: Savings here is treated as money you moved out of spending. Whether to save, how much and where is your decision, and this sheet will not tell you.
Keeping it up
Pick a fixed time each week, say Sunday, to enter that week's transactions. Five minutes of weekly entry beats an hour of month-end reconstruction from memory. If you are stuck on a formula, DuckyHelper can look at your screen while the pill is open and you can ask about the cell out loud while you work.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need one tab per month?
No, but it keeps each month's plan and result together, and copying a tab gives you the next month's layout in seconds.
Should planned and actual use the same categories?
Yes. If the categories differ, the Difference column stops meaning anything.
Get started
