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The Budget Spreadsheet

Thursday, October 24, 2024

I will try to keep this introduction short. Aiming to explain enough to get you going, then come back later with more details if necassary.

The goal is to create and maintain a budget for each month, and perhaps most importantly, to effecivly and efficiently communicate with your spouse on where the budget stands over the course of each month. Budget tracking is accomplished with a journal where transactions are logged manually. Communication is handled automatically via text and/or email whenever the journal is updated.

A transaction involves at minimum two accounts, because in every transaction money flows from somewhere and goes to somwhere. Below is a basic example showing how a transaction is journaled

11/13/2025 Costco Exp:Grocery & Household $234.56
Liability:Credit Cards:Costco Visa $234.56
Figure 1. Basic Transaction

On the first row, the transaction has a date, a description (just Costco in this case); an account were the money went, the Grocery & houshold Expense account; and the amount of the "debit" to the expense account. The second row has the account that was "credited." In this case the Credit Card Liabilty "Costco Visa," and the amount that was credited. Don't get too hung up on the credit and debit terms. The usage is likely not what you are familiar with. We will look closer at this later.

A transaction is not limited to two accounts, for example, a mortgage payment might look like

12/1/2025 Mortgage Interest Exp:Interest:Mortgage $123.45
Mortgage Escrow Pmt Exp:Mortgage Escrow $100.00
Mortgage Principle Liability:Mortgage $456.78
Asset:Cash:Checking $680.23
Figure 2. A Multi-Account Transaction

Notice how money flows into the Interest and Escrow Expense accouts, and the Mortgage Liabilituy account, and the total amount flows out of the Checking Account. For every transaction the total in the left column should equal the total in the right column (total debits = total credits). Don't worry if it seems confusing at the moment. There are only a few basic patterns, and after a few days of logging trasnactions, you will get the hang of it, and there are more transaction examples included later to cover all the most common transaciton types encountered.

Now that we have an idea of what transactions are, and how they are journaled, let's turn our attention to the accounts we will be using to classify transactions. There are five top-level account types: Income, Expense, Asset, Liability, and Equity. These five top-level accounts can have infinite sub-accounts, but three to four levels of subdividing is usually sufficient. You create the account list, so it's up to how granular the classificaitons get.

Let's look at how the sub- accounts are deifined. The spreadsheet has a sheet called accounts, and not suprisingly, the accounts are defined here. Below is an example a list of what the asset accounts might look like

Asset:Cash:Brokerage Acct
Asset:Cash:Cash on Hand
Asset:Cash:Checking
Asset:Retirement:401k
Asset:Retirement:IRA:Self
Asset:Retirement:IRA:Spouse

The colon character serves as the delimiter for sub accounts. In the example above there is an Asset sub-account called Cash. The Cash sub account has three sub-accounts of its own called Brokerage, Cash on Hand, and Checking. There is also an Asset sub-account called Retirement, and it has two sub-accounts called 401k and IRA. The IRA sub-account is then further sub-divided into sub-accounts Self and Spouse. You can be as granular as you wish when creating accounts and categorizing transactions. Don't worry if it's a bit confusing. It will make more sense when we get to journaling transactions.

The spreadsheet contains five main worksheets: Budget, Journal, Accounts, AnnualExp, and SummaryInfo. In addition, there are worksheets for tracking account balances and a sheet for configuration details.

Beginning with the Budget worksheet, the figure below is an example of how the table is structured.

Totals
Income "$2 000.00" "$2 000.00" "$2 000.00" "$2 000.00" "$2 000.00" "$2 000.00" "$2 000.00" "$2 000.00" "$2 000.00" "$2 000.00" "$2 000.00" "$2 000.00" "$24 000.00"
Transfer $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Outgo $720.83 $720.83 $720.83 $720.83 $720.83 $720.83 $720.83 $720.83 $720.83 $720.83 $720.83 $720.83 "$8 650.00"
Leftwith "$1 279.17" "$1 279.17" "$1 279.17" "$1 279.17" "$1 279.17" "$1 279.17" "$1 279.17" "$1 279.17" "$1 279.17" "$1 279.17" "$1 279.17" "$1 279.17" "$15 350.00"
Monthly Bills January February March April May June July August September October November December
Mortgage $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 "$1 200.00"
Bill 2 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $600.00
Bill 3 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $300.00
Bill 4 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 5 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 6 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 7 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 8 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 9 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 10 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 11 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 12 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 13 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 14 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 15 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 16 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 17 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Bill 18 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
$175.00 $175.00 $175.00 $175.00 $175.00 $175.00 $175.00 $175.00 $175.00 $175.00 $175.00 $175.00 "$2 100.00"
Pay Deductions
Federal Income Tax $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $600.00
Social Security Tax $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $600.00
Medicare Tax $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $300.00
State Income Tax $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $25.00 $300.00
Deduct 5 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Deduct 6 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Deduct 7 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Deduct 8 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Deduct 9 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Deduct 10 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Deduct 11 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Deduct 12 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
$150.00 $150.00 $150.00 $150.00 $150.00 $150.00 $150.00 $150.00 $150.00 $150.00 $150.00 $150.00 "$1 800.00"
Budget Items Tracked Via
Grocery & Household $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 "$1 200.00" Exp:Household
Fuel $50.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 $100.00 "$1 150.00" Exp:Fuel
Dining $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $600.00 Exp:Dining
Misc $100.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $50.00 $650.00 Exp:Discretionary Spending
AnnualExpBudgets $95.83 $95.83 $95.83 $95.83 $95.83 $95.83 $95.83 $95.83 $95.83 $95.83 $95.83 $95.83 "$1 150.00"
Budget Item 06 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Budget Item 07 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Budget Item 08 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Budget Item 09 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Budget Item 10 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Budget Item 11 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Budget Item 12 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Budget Item 13 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Budget Item 14 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Budget Item 15 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Total $395.83 $395.83 $395.83 $395.83 $395.83 $395.83 $395.83 $395.83 $395.83 $395.83 $395.83 $395.83 $4. 750.00"
Figure 1. Budget Table

Then he had something else to say

Then he had even more things to say