Excel Spreadsheets

There's no doubt that folks who have experience with Microsoft's Excel spreadsheeting program know that it's extremely helpful tool for managing your finances.

Building your own custom spreadsheets is very easy, and although Excel's price may seem a bit steep, once you've learned how to make it do what you want, there's really no limit to its number-crunching, chart-building, and record-keeping abilities. (Especially if you have a 2016 or later version. I consider it to be a fabulous financial tool, and just a "Can't live without it!" program.

But what you're here for, most likely, are the spreadsheets. What follows are custom, downloadable Excel spreadsheets which I created for all sorts of things. A given spreadsheet might be designed for daily, weekly, or monthly use ... or some combination thereof.

You'll find spreadsheets that can help you with household budgeting (I used to call 'em "spending plans"), planning for future expenses, amortizing loans of various types, and tracking your debt loads. Some of these spreadsheets I use myself; others I created simply because someone, somewhere asked for them. There are a lot of files available — some of which are set up to accomplish tasks you probably never considered!

One last note: These might not be the fanciest spreadsheets out there, but on the whole, they've helped me tremendously. There's a lot of power in making numbers do what you want them to do.

Before you continue, please read our disclaimer.

Check Register Express

I am forever getting Google searches from folks looking for a check register spreadsheet. Mine won't do what Quicken does, for sure. But if you're looking for a clean, concise register to track account balances, give it a try. It has a Recurring Transactions Log to help you remember what's due when, and perhaps most importantly, it gives you the ability to categorize your spending, allowing up to 200 user-entered categories. Categories and transaction types are easily entered via drop-down menus.

The for-pay version adds macros to make the sorting of categories and transactions "one-click" simple. It also adds a tool to help reconcile the account. Plus, at less than ten bucks, it's Crazy Cheap for you ... and covers a decent chunk of my monthly hosting bill in one swoop!

Download the free version at my Free Excel Check Register page.

To learn about the pay version, head over to my detailed Check Register Spreadsheet w/Sorting & Reconcile page.

Receipt Splitter

Since I like to make as few trips to Wal-Mart as necessary, my receipts from there tend to be about 18 inches long. Groceries make up the majority of this, but it's a pain to separate out everything else by hand or adding machine. So I built this spreadsheet to take care of it. The latest version uses a one-click macro to clear and reset the spreadsheet when you're calculating multiple receipts at one sitting. Plus it looks a little better, too.

"Envelopes" Check Register

Another check register spreadsheet — but this one's based on the "envelopes" method of cash-flow management. (Note that this one could work as a budgeting tool, as well!)

Freedom Account Spreadsheet

A simple spreadsheet that goes hand-in-hand with the Freedom Account page elsewhere on this site. Read that page, and you'll understand just what the heck this spreadsheet (and this concept) can do for you! And be sure to take a look at ExcelGeek's Freedom Account spreadsheet, too. It'll knock your keyboard off!

DebtTracker

The DebtTracker is by far my most downloaded spreadsheet. It can help track your credit-card and other installment debts on an ongoing basis. Inputs include all current debt balances, limits, initial borrowed amounts (for auto loans, etc.), estimated annual household income, and others. Outputs include debt-to-income ratio, credit card utilization ratio, and various other metrics.

The newest version utilizes macros to easily sort all your debts in a variety of ways: by balance, by interest rate, by name, by estimated payoff date, and so on. The DebtTracker also now offers visualization of your debt paydown progress via charts. I think it's a pretty good all-in-one place to log and track your debt balances.

For lots more info and download, visit my DebtTracker Spreadsheet page.

Spending Plan Spreadsheets

Each of these spreadsheets allows you to create a simple monthly spending plan whereby you can track and update all your expenses as time passes, and compare these expenses to your income for the month. You'll want to have a good list of your recurring monthly expenses and their expected dollar amounts handy when you work the spreadsheet.

For FAQs and tutorials on the newest version of my Spending Plan spreadsheet, head to my Spending Plan Spreadsheet details page. For more details on the basics of budgeting, see my Spending Plan page.

(FYI: There's also an extremely effective budgeting program available at YouNeedABudget.com. You can check out my review of it here.)

BoxBudget Spreadsheet

A reader asked for a budgeting spreadsheet that would break down each month into four distinct time periods. So I delivered!

SimpleBudget Spreadsheet

No frills and fancy stuff here — just good ol' income-minus-expenses budgeting spreadsheeting!

Dave Ramsey's Pro Rata Debts Spreadsheet

This spreadsheet is based on Dave Ramsey's "Pro Rata Debt Worksheet" form found in his book The Total Money Makeover. It follows Ramsey's suggestion that folks who are struggling to make debt payments send at least something to creditors each month — but that they also do it in fair and non-preferential amounts. This spreadsheet computes those "fair share" payments, and creates an easily-printable version as well.

Credit Card Arbitrage Estimator

If you're thinking about playing the low-rate credit-card arbitrage game, you'll want to take a look at this spreadsheet.

This simple spreadsheet helps me determine what profit (both before- and after-tax) I might garner by arbitraging the various low-rate card offers which hit my mailbox all the time. Borrowing money at 0, 1, or 2 percent and then depositing it in higher-rate savings accounts isn't a task suitable for everyone — but if you're one of the many detail-savvy folks who do this, this spreadsheet can help you estimate the potential payoff for your efforts.

For more details, screenshots, and the download, swing over to my Arbitrage Estimator Spreadsheet page.

College Savings Estimator

Worried to death about how you're going to pay for Junior's higher ed?

Well, with tuition rates rising significantly each year, you might as well keep worrying. But while you're at it, do a little planning. And do it with this spreadsheet. My College Savings Estimator will give you a rough idea of how much savings you can expect to accumulate (so long as you do it consistently!) by the time Junior is ready to start college. In addition, you'll be able to see how your savings will stack up against up to five years of college expenses.

For more details, screenshots, and download, head over to my College Savings Spreadsheet page.

U.S. Federal Income Tax Calculator

A reader asked for a simple spreadsheet that, given taxable income, could calculate his U.S. income tax. This spreadsheet does that. You'll need to find and input your family's correct tax bracket for whatever year you're working with, but this should be easily available from IRS.gov or via a Google search. Once you've entered the tax bracket, just plug in your taxable income, and the spreadsheet does the nasty math for you. Whoopee, right?

ExcelGeek's CD Ladder Spreadsheet

For anyone interested in "laddering" their investments in bank Certificates of Deposit (CDs), this spreadsheet may be of great benefit. Among other things, it will compute results for your investments over both 2-year and 5-year cycles. Created by ExcelGeek, the same guy who brought you the world's best Freedom Account spreadsheet.

Balance Sheets / Statements of Net Worth

Here are two different spreadsheet templates for constructing your household's balance sheet, as described on our "Worth of Net Worth" page. IYM's spreadsheet consists of 4 pages: The first asks you to input your family's assets; the second asks for your family's liabilities; the third summarizes the first two and calculates your net worth, solvency ratio, and liquidity ratio; the fourth calculates miscellaneous other data and metrics.

Auto-Billing Log Sheet

I'm a big fan of setting up bills to automatically pay via credit card. It's convenient, and results in less payments for me to have to remember to initiate online or mail. Keeping track of such "automatically-billed bills" is imperative, however. Should you close a credit card, for example, you need to know which bills you scheduled to pay through that card. This ultra-simple spreadsheet (really just a logbook) is how I keep track. Each credit card (or bank account; you could use it for those, too, I guess) has its own workbook page. On each card's / account's page, just list which companies or bills automatically post to that card / account.

Take it from me:   It's nice to have all this information in one place when you need it!

Price Book Spreadsheet

Allows you to track the prices of commonly-purchased items. Calculates price-per-weight-unit (if applicable), price-per-quantity-unit (if applicable), and/or price-per-use (if applicable). For more information, you may also read this IYM Article. (Revision 2.0 adds a "Store" column which allows for easier sorting by category.)

Savings Contribution Calculator

A friend wanted to increase his retirement savings from 8 percent of gross income per year to 10 percent. No big deal, right? Well, the only complication was that the 8 percent was going into his 401(k) at work, and he did not want to raise the contribution level for that account. Rather, he wished to cover the balance of his 10 percent savings goal by contributing to a Roth IRA on a monthly basis. Additionally, he wanted to make sure he hit the 10 percent savings goal for the current calendar year, a few months of which had already passed. This spreadsheet told him how much he needed to contribute to his Roth IRA per month, from this point on, to hit his goal.

BMF Spending Plan Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet for use with the ideas presented on my Balanced Spending Formula page. Read that before downloading the spreadsheet, if you want it to make sense. However, if you've read Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi's 2005 book All Your Worth (review), then you should already be good to go.

Portfolio Allocation Spreadsheet

A reader requested a simple spreadsheet to help calculate the reallocation of certain investments in her investment portfolio. She knew what investments she wanted, and what percentage of her entire portfolio she wanted each investment to constitute. So how about making a spreadsheet to help her convert those desired percentages into the dollar amounts necessary to achieve them? That?s what this spreadsheet does.

Automobile Payment Spreadsheet

A two-part spreadsheet that will calculate both (1) the approximate amount of vehicle you can shop for, given a preferred monthly payment, and (2) the approximate monthly payment you can expect for a specific loan amount.

Loan Payoff / Amortization Spreadsheet

Creates a quick 'n' dirty (if not exact) payment schedule (in other words, a simple amortization) for any fixed-rate loan. Inputs include loan amount, loan interest rate, and additional monthly payments (if any). The spreadsheet amortizes the loan (maximum of 480 payment periods). It displays interest payments (both monthly and total), running balances, and expected payoff date. Great for playing with different payment amounts to see what effect this has on your loan payoff date and on total interest dollars paid!

Get it from my Loan Amortization spreadsheet page.

Monthly Bill Chart

I used to hate trying to remember whether or not I'd paid a particular bill earlier in any given month. I built and printed out this grid to take care of the problem. Now, whenever I pay a bill, I scribble a checkmark in its box for that month. No more remembering! I keep the numbers in parentheses to show me the approximate dates of the month that that particular bill is usually due.