Combine the cells and increase the font size to make it look better. Rent is paid on the 1st of the month so by the end of the month, which these totals are representing, you don’t owe anymore rent. It’s updated every time a month is filled out on the Balance Sheet so if your start date is the first of the current month, you won’t see anything here yet. In just one configuration tab, you’ll fill out all your info: income, account names, budget, etc. I call the monthly budget the “guilt-free budget,” which is a concept taken from the book “I Will Teach You to Be Rich.” Since the budget template is built to help you put aside money for savings before creating your monthly budget, it means you don’t ever have to feel guilty about spending the money you do have left over. We are going to make an assumption of how much we will be making and write that alongside the actual amount. You can analyze this easier in the the Dashboard tab. If your best friend just told you to make use of a bi-weekly budget because it helped him better manage his money, you should probably follow that advice. Before leaving the Config tab, you’ll be able to choose how much of it will go into savings, additional retirement accounts, loans, etc, but first you have to name your accounts. In the Expenses tab you’ll record your monthly and annual expenses - one row per one expense. This is because it will bring a positive change in your life. So actually, rent should be $0 for every month in the Balance Sheet. And that amount is deducted before you set up your monthly budget. Using a credit card makes it much easier to keep track of your spending and at the same time protects your bank account from fraud, builds your credit, and you can earn points and rewards. Across the heading, you’ll see your guilt-free budget and annual budget categories from the Config tab. As you use this Google Sheets budget template each month, more data on the Dashboard tab will start to populate and be more useful. Download this budget template in Word to get started with planning on where to spend how much money. There are simple and clear instructions with extra notes on cells that have an asterisk(*) - just hover over those cells to the see note. Write the headings as ‘income source,’ ‘estimated,’ ‘actual’ and ‘difference’ for the four columns that we are going to be using. It is better to stay organized, for that helps mitigate some of the trouble. If you have one and gave it a nickname in the Asset Names box, the nickname will be used for this line item. At the beginning of the month when you fill this out, you’ll enter the balances of each account in the previous month’s column. And that’s why I love budgets built on spreadsheets. Our suggestion would be to use a bar graph. If you believe a budget will help you get control of your spending, read this guide on how to stick to new habits: How to Make New Habits Stick When Motivation Runs Out, The 6 best tips from Atomic Habits on building habits that last. Start using one now to see some positive change in your financial standing. You need to create a budget and we can help you with that. That’s why I made it a point to make this budget template in Google Sheets look nice, be easy to use, and be rewarding to use. Use the dropdown selector in the top right of the box to look at a specific budget category or look at the total. In the last row you can leave notes for yourself if something noteworthy occurred that you might want to come back to. The Monthly Expenses and Annual Expenses sections automatically sum your expenses for that month for each budget category. This provides the same data as the graph above, but in a table format.