Free Monthly Budget Spreadsheet

Most budgeting apps want your bank login. This doesn't. The Monetally Simple Budget is a free, private spreadsheet — no account, no subscription, no tracking. Just your numbers, working for you.

Enter your email below and we'll send it instantly — Excel and Google Sheets versions included.

• 27 yellow input cells — fill in income and expenses, the sheet does the math
• Month Summary — surplus/deficit at a glance
• Works in Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers, and Google Sheets
• 100% free, no strings attached

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What's actually inside the spreadsheet

This isn't a template with fifty tabs you'll never open. It's one clean monthly sheet built around a simple principle: if a budget takes more than ten minutes to update, you'll stop updating it.

Income section. Space for your paycheck plus any side income — freelance work, cash back, interest. Most people underestimate their real monthly income because irregular money never gets counted. Here, it does.

Fixed expenses. Rent or mortgage, insurance, subscriptions, minimum debt payments — the bills that arrive whether you think about them or not. Listing them in one column usually produces the first surprise: subscriptions alone quietly run $40–$80/month for a typical household.

Variable spending. Groceries, gas, dining out, shopping. These are the categories where budgets are actually won or lost, so they get the most input cells. You don't need receipts-level precision — close estimates beat perfect abandonment.

Month Summary. The sheet totals everything and shows one number that matters: surplus or deficit. Green means money left over to direct somewhere on purpose. Red means the month needs a decision, not more optimism.

How to use it (10 minutes, once a month)

1. Fill in the yellow cells. Only the yellow cells. Everything else calculates itself. Pull numbers from last month's bank and card statements — actual spending, not what you hope you spend.

2. Read the summary. One number: surplus or deficit. That's your monthly verdict.

3. Give the surplus a job. Money without an assignment gets spent. Whether it goes to debt, savings, or investing, decide before the month starts — even $100 assigned on purpose beats $300 that evaporates.

4. Repeat next month. The value compounds with consistency. By month three you'll know your real spending patterns — most people never do.

Not sure how to split income across needs, wants, and savings? The 50/30/20 Budget Calculator gives you target percentages to aim for, and our guide to the 50/30/20 rule explains when the rule works — and when it doesn't.

Why a spreadsheet instead of a budgeting app?

Budgeting apps solve a real problem, but they come with trade-offs that rarely get mentioned. Most require linking your bank accounts through a third-party aggregator. Many charge $8–$15/month — which is its own budget line. And automatic categorization does the thinking for you, which sounds like a feature but works like a bug: people who manually enter their numbers consistently know their finances better than people who glance at an auto-generated pie chart.

A spreadsheet is the opposite trade. Ten minutes of manual entry a month, in exchange for total privacy, zero cost, and the kind of number-level familiarity with your own money that no app dashboard produces. Your data lives in your file, on your device. Nobody's server is involved.

If you've tried apps and stopped opening them after week two, you're the person this spreadsheet was built for.

Want the full picture?

The free version covers one month at a time. The Monetally Budget Dashboard Pro is the year-scale version: a 12-month overview that shows trends the single-month sheet can't — whether your savings rate is actually improving, which categories creep up over time, and how this December compares to last March.

It adds savings rate tracking and a sweep-to-savings system that automatically rolls each month's surplus into savings, so leftover money gets captured instead of absorbed into next month's spending.

Frequently asked questions

Is it really free?

Yes. You get the full spreadsheet — Excel and Google Sheets versions — in exchange for your email. We send occasional money tips you can unsubscribe from with one click. No credit card, no trial, no locked features.

Do I need Excel?

No. It works in Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets (free with any Google account), and Apple Numbers. The Google Sheets version means you can budget from any browser without buying software.

Will this work if my income is irregular?

Yes — arguably better than most apps. Enter your actual income for the month, or budget from your lowest realistic month and treat anything above it as automatic surplus. The Month Summary adjusts instantly either way.

What's the difference between this and the Pro version?

The free sheet is a single-month budget. Budget Dashboard Pro tracks all 12 months in one dashboard, calculates your savings rate over time, and includes the sweep-to-savings system. Start free — upgrade only if you find yourself wanting the year view.

More free tools from Monetally

Budget Calculator — see exactly where your money goes each month

Compound Interest Calculator — see how your savings grow over time

Can I Afford It? — get an honest answer before any big purchase

Current Mortgage Rates — live Freddie Mac data, updated weekly