Household Budget Excel - Free Template

Enter any real date in Budget Summary!B2. A date such as 15/04/2026 selects all valid April entries. The main indicators and category table filter by that calendar month; the trend shows the same month and the preceding three months.

Use rows 2–500 in Budget Tracker. Each line needs a date, category, type, budgeted amount and actual amount. You can use one line per monthly category and update its actual total, or split both the budget and actual amounts across smaller allocations. Do not repeat the full monthly budget on every purchase, or the planned total will be overstated.

For example, if groceries have a monthly budget of £420, keep one grocery line with £420 planned and update the actual total from your records. If you prefer weekly lines, divide the planned £420 across those lines instead of entering £420 four times.

A savings transfer uses part of the month’s available income. The model includes it in outgoings and calculates actual savings ÷ actual income as the savings rate. Do not record the receiving savings account as a second income entry in this same household budget.

“Actual unallocated amount” is actual income minus all actual outgoings, including savings allocations. It is not the balance of your bank account, because the workbook does not include an opening bank balance or reconcile account transactions.

Variance is actual minus budgeted. A positive spending variance means spending above plan; a positive income variance means income above plan. The Status column labels those cases separately. Savings also has its own above-plan, below-plan and on-plan wording.

In the examples, groceries of £438.75 against £420 planned are £18.75 over budget. Increasing income from £3,200 to £3,300 is “Above planned income” and does not add to the overspend count. Savings of £300 against actual income of £3,200 give a savings rate of 9.375%.

Enter zero when the actual amount is genuinely zero. Leave it blank while it is unknown: that row will be flagged and excluded from the summary rather than being silently treated as a completed zero-spend entry. The “Entries to check” count covers all months, so inspect flagged rows before interpreting a period’s totals.

The category table starts with nine named categories. If you use another category, its valid records still enter the headline figures, but you must add that category to the table and chart ranges to see it separately. The category-table total combines the displayed income and allocation categories; use the headline income and outgoings figures to judge the budget.

The four-month trend is built from recorded data. Earlier months are no longer filled with invented historical totals. A zero may simply mean that no entries were recorded for that month; it does not prove there was no household income or spending.

Keep formulas in B, J:L and P. The workbook supports 499 entry lines. Extend formulas, validation and summary ranges together for a longer history, and retain a copy before changing the structure. There is no bank import, benefits calculation or automatic debt-payment schedule.