Free Budget Templates for Excel

The preset budget templates you can apply in File > New are a subset of all available budget templates. To access the full range of available budget templates, visit https://create.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/budgets and explore budget templates designed for different purposes, from regular monthly budgets to wedding, college, or home-ownership budgets.

Family Monthly Budget Template

This free budget template doesn't have complex visualizations but lets you keep track of your family's monthly expenses with little effort. It's a simple monthly budget template for beginners that requires you to create a separate budget spreadsheet file for each month of the year.

To use this Excel budget template, click the Customize in Excel or Download button on the Family Monthly Budget Template page:

  -  The details of your expenses are entered on the Monthly expenses tab by selecting an expense type from the cell drop-down list, entering the projected cost at the beginning of the month, and updating the actual cost throughout the month:

  -  The list of available expenses is updated on the Expenses categories tab:

  -  The auto-updating pivot table on the Expenses summary tab provides an aggregated view of your monthly spending:

A family or individual can use this simple, accessible, yet powerful budget template to track monthly income, expenses, and total cash flow. Family budgeting is easy when you follow this sample budgeting template in Excel. This family budget template provides a clear cash flow analysis of projected vs. actual income and expenses.

Semi-Monthly Budget Template

This free budget template is for the whole year. This biweekly budget template worksheet is for you if you get paid twice a month and need to plan your expenses accordingly. Thanks to advanced features such as slicers and a timeline, you can use this budgeting spreadsheet for multiple years.

To use this Excel budget template, click the Customize in Excel or Download button on the Semi-Monthly Budget Template page.

  -  The Dashboard tab includes charts for monthly and yearly totals and a table for bi-weekly income and expenses (see above).

  -  The details of your income and expenses are entered on the Expenditures & income tab:

• The expense category is selected from the auto-updating drop-down list.
• The expense description is selected from the dependent drop-down list.

  -  The list of expense categories and descriptions is updated on the Data lists tab:

  -  The Budget report tab provides visualization and filtering of expense data:

This budget template provides a variety of tools for analyzing your expenses. However, it doesn't provide projected income and expenses like the Family Monthly Budget Template. The easiest way to solve this problem is to add projected rows on the Dashboard tab or create a full-featured Monthly Expenses tab with actual and projected amounts.

Holiday Budget Planner Template

This free budget template helps you track expenses for entertainment, gifts, travel, and more for extended family vacations and events. Holiday and vacation budgeting is much easier with this Excel template that instantly calculates the difference between projected costs and actual spending.

To use this Excel budget template, click the Customize in Excel or Download button on the Holiday Budget Planner Template page:

There is only the Holiday Budget Planner tab in this budget planner template. The lack of complex data tools and formulas makes this template easy to understand and adapt to its needs, even for beginners.

Home Construction Budget Template

This free budget template helps you quickly see if you are within your home construction budget and if any funds are available. Before you start a construction project, it is important to create a budget and write down all the costs associated with the project, including labor, materials, and fixed costs.

To use this Excel budget template, click the Customize in Excel or Download button on the Home Construction Budget Template page.

  -  The Budget Summary tab provides a high-level view of your home improvement or construction project.

  -  The Itemized Expenses tab tracks labor, materials, and home construction costs breakdown against your original estimates. You must create a detailed budget by estimating how much each will cost and keep track of your costs. Therefore, it is better to add a projected cost column at the beginning and compare allotted funds to the projected costs:

Note: The Data Bars in the Amount cells do not represent the used/remaining fraction. They show the cost relative to the most expensive item.

Personal Net Worth Template

This free Excel template is designed to visualize a summary of assets and debt. The personal balance sheet helps individuals and households determine their financial health, create a budget, and define goals. This personal balance spreadsheet lists all personal assets, anything owned with financial value, and all personal liabilities and debts owed to financial institutions. The net worth or equity is an amount the individual or household would have if they sold all assets and paid off all liabilities.

To use this Excel budget template, click the Customize in Excel or Download button on the Personal Net Worth Template page.

  -  The Personal Net Worth tab shows a net worth and a summary of your assets and debt.

  -  The Assets tab contains a categorized list of assets like cash, real estate, investments, life insurance, and investments:

  -  The Debt tab contains a categorized list of liabilities like mortgages, loans, and other debts:

Further Reading

If you use one of the above templates, you may need to add or modify individual components. The following links to the articles may help you understand and customize the budget templates:

• How to create drop-down list in Excel cell
• How to create an automatically extended or dynamic drop-down list
• How to create a dependent drop-down list
• How to create a computable drop-down list
• Creating and using named ranges