Best free personal monthly budget template (2023)

FAQs

Best free personal monthly budget template? ›

The 75/15/10 Rule: This rule means that from all of your income, 75% goes towards spending, 15% goes towards investments, and 10% goes to savings. This rule helps reinforce investing as a priority every time you get your paycheck.

The 75/15/10 Rule: This rule means that from all of your income, 75% goes towards spending, 15% goes towards investments, and 10% goes to savings. This rule helps reinforce investing as a priority every time you get your paycheck.

40% of your time should be devoted to your most important priority. 30% of your time should be devoted to your second priority. 20% of your time should be devoted to your third priority. 10% of your time should be devoted to everything else (urgent and obligatory tasks).

The idea is to divide your income into three categories, spending 50% on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% on savings. Learn more about the 50/30/20 budget rule and if it's right for you.

DIY with the Personal budget template

This Excel template can help you track your monthly budget by income and expenses. Input your costs and income, and any difference is calculated automatically so you can avoid shortfalls or make plans for any projected surpluses.

What is a realistic monthly budget? ›

The basic rule of thumb is to divide your monthly after-tax income into three spending categories: 50% for needs, 30% for wants and 20% for savings or paying off debt. By regularly keeping your expenses balanced across these main spending areas, you can put your money to work more efficiently.

The 50/30/20 rule is a budgeting technique that involves dividing your money into three primary categories based on your after-tax income (i.e., your take-home pay): 50% to needs, 30% to wants and 20% to savings and debt payments.

A good monthly budget should follow the 50/30/20 rule. According to this method, your monthly take-home income is divided into three categories: 50% for needs, 30% for wants and 20% for savings and debt repayment.

Applying around 70% of your take-home pay to needs, letting around 20% go to wants, and aiming to save only 10% are simply more realistic goals to shoot for right now.

The 70-20-10 rule holds that: 70 percent of your after-tax income should go toward basic monthly expenses like housing, utilities, food, transportation, and personal living expenses; 20 percent should be saved or put into investments, leaving 10 percent for debt repayment.

Actually, this is how you allocate your money into three different categories – needs, wants, and savings. This is to determine what amount of money should be put into every three categories. This means 40% of your budget will be allocated to your needs, 10% to your wants, and putting 50% towards your savings.

The 80/20 budgeting method is a common budgeting approach. It involves saving 20% of your income and limiting your spending to 80% of your earnings. This technique allows you to put savings first, and it's both flexible and easy.

50 - Consider allocating no more than 50 percent of take-home pay to essential expenses. 15 - Try to save 15 percent of pretax income (including employer contributions) for retirement. 5 - Save for the unexpected by keeping 5 percent of take-home pay in short-term savings for unplanned expenses.

By age 50, you would be considered on track if you have three to six times your preretirement gross income saved. And by age 60, you should have 5.5 to 11 times your salary saved in order to be considered on track for retirement.

What is the 36 28 rule? ›

What Is the 28/36 Rule? The 28/36 rule refers to a common-sense approach used to calculate the amount of debt an individual or household should assume. A household should spend a maximum of 28% of its gross monthly income on total housing expenses according to this rule, and no more than 36% on total debt service.

It's Fidelity's simple rule of thumb for saving and spending: Aim to allocate no more than 50% of take-home pay to essential expenses, save 15% of pretax income for retirement savings, and keep 5% of take-home pay for short-term savings.

The judge of CNBC's “Money Court” tells CNBC Make It that renters and buyers alike need to follow the 1/3 rule, which calls for a third of your after-tax income to go toward living expenses, a third toward your home and the last third toward savings and investments.

What is a personal monthly budget template? A personal monthly budget template helps you plan your spending. It lets you compare your budgeted expenses and income versus your actual expenses and income. And most importantly, a monthly budgeting template provides a bird's eye view of your current financial situation.

The three main elements, or parts, of a personal budget are income, expenditures, and savings.

Try the 50/30/20 rule as a simple budgeting framework. Allow up to 50% of your income for needs. Leave 30% of your income for wants. Commit 20% of your income to savings and debt repayment.

Most corporations, including government organizations, businesses, and non-profits, use Microsoft Excel for their budgeting. Excel offers them flexibility, familiarity, and ease of compiling, sorting, managing, and analyzing data for budgeting and forecasting.

Key Takeaways

The rule states that you should spend up to 50% of your after-tax income on needs and obligations that you must-have or must-do. The remaining half should be split up between 20% savings and debt repayment and 30% to everything else that you might want.

What is the 10 20 rule? ›

The rule dictates that total consumer debt shouldn't exceed 20% of your annual take-home pay and monthly debt payments shouldn't exceed 10% of your monthly take-home pay. This rule of thumb can help consumers cap the amount of debt they hold, which is important for their financial health and their credit score.

There are folks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics who keep track of what Americans spend on everything from cereal to housing. And they say the average monthly expenses for an American household add up to $5,577. That equals $66,928 per year, which is crazy close to the average annual income of $78,743 after taxes.

The golden rule of government spending is a fiscal policy that a government should borrow only to invest in projects that will create long-term, future benefits. Under the rule, current expenditures should be financed through taxation, not by issuing new sovereign debt.

“Use the 50/20/30 rule to manage spending—apply 50 percent of your take-home pay to needs, 20 percent to savings and debt payments, and no more than 30 percent to your wants.”

For example, say your monthly take-home pay is $4,000. Applying the 50/30/20 rule would give you a budget of: 50% for mandatory expenses = $2,000 (0.50 X 4,000 = $2,000) 30% for wants and discretionary spending = $1,200 (0.30 X 4,000 = $1,200)

It goes like this: 40% of income should go towards necessities (such as rent/mortgage, utilities, and groceries) 30% should go towards discretionary spending (such as dining out, entertainment, and shopping) - Hubble Spending Money Account is just for this. 20% should go towards savings or paying off debt.

"the investor should never have less than 25% or more than 75% of his funds in common stocks."

The 50/30/20 rule is a simple way to budget that doesn't involve a lot of detail and may work for some. That rule suggests you should spend 50% of your after-tax pay on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% on savings and paying off debt.

The mistake most people make is assuming they must be out of debt before they start investing. In doing so, they miss out on the number one key to success in investing: TIME. The 70/30 Rule is simple: Live on 70% of your income, save 20%, and give 10% to your Church, or favorite charity.

The rule of 70 is used to determine the number of years it takes for a variable to double by dividing the number 70 by the variable's growth rate. The rule of 70 is generally used to determine how long it would take for an investment to double given the annual rate of return.

What should spending on wants not exceed according to the 50 30 20 rule? ›

Our 50/30/20 calculator divides your take-home income into suggested spending in three categories: 50% of net pay for needs, 30% for wants and 20% for savings and debt repayment.

If you have a large amount of debt that you need to pay off, you can modify your percentage-based budget and follow the 60/20/20 rule. Put 60% of your income towards your needs (including debts), 20% towards your wants, and 20% towards your savings.

Here comes the most crucial part— saving & investments. As per the original budgeting rule, you must dedicate 20% of your income to savings & investments. However, if you have limited debt (lower than 20% of your salary) and limited wants (lower than 10% of your salary), you can invest 20-40% of your income.

Important reminder: The 50/30/20 budget rule only considers your take-home pay for the month, so anything automatically deducted from your paycheck — like your work health insurance premium or 401k retirement contribution — doesn't count in the equation.

We recommend the popular 50/30/20 budget to maximize your money. In it, you spend roughly 50% of your after-tax dollars on necessities, no more than 30% on wants, and at least 20% on savings and debt repayment.

What is the best way to create a budget? Divide your income into categories and plan how much you'll spend on each.

The zero-based budget is the best method of budgeting because: The zero-based budget ensures that every dollar you make is assigned a specific purpose.

A budget is a spending plan based on income and expenses. In other words, it's an estimate of how much money you'll make and spend over a certain period of time, such as a month or year.

The five most commonly used business #budgeting methods are the zero-based budget, incremental budget, activity-based budget, value proposition budget, and Flexible budget. each of these methods has its #advantages and #drawbacks, so it's important to choose the one that is best suited for your business.

What is Japanese method budget? ›

Originating in Japan, the Kakeibo method is a Japanese budgeting system that involves you manually tracking your spending to give you control of your money. Kakeibo uses the reflective practice of journaling to make you more aware of your spending habits and help you to uncover areas where you can save.

The hardest part of budgeting for most people is unexpected expenses. These may be unexpected, and sometimes unpleasant, but you can still plan for them. If you have a car, plan to have it repaired. The unknowns are when that will be and how much it will cost.

Both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets offer free budget templates to users. Free budget templates are also available on websites such as Life and My Finances and Vertex42. You can also create your own, though there can be a learning curve to using the programs.

The 7 different types of budgeting used by companies are strategic plan budget, cash budget, master budget, labor budget, capital budget, financial budget, operating budget.