Plan what you'll spend this pay, then see what you really spent. Fill in the yellow boxes and the dashboard shows planned vs actual, category by category.
Writing a budget is the easy part. Knowing whether you actually stuck to it is where most spreadsheets leave you guessing.
Pages of categories and formulas make it hard to know where to start, so it never gets started.
You finish the fortnight still unsure: did you stay on track, and where did it go over?
It's set to fortnightly. Change it if you’re paid weekly, every 4 weeks or monthly.
Your pay, your bills, what you plan to spend and what you want to save.
After payday, type your actual spending, or import your bank file instead.
Planned vs actual for every category, with each one marked on track or over.
Paste in your bank transactions and the spreadsheet sorts them into groceries, fuel, subscriptions and more, then fills in your actual spending for you.
Money coming in, planned and actual spending, your savings plan and your surplus, plus a chart comparing plan and reality for each category.
Add a keyword like your local cafe or gym and it sticks for every future import. Over a hundred common ones come ready to go.
This is a complete, working budget, given away free. It began as the spreadsheet I wanted when I first tried to get on top of our single-income household, useful enough on its own that you never have to buy a thing.
Yes. No payment. Enter your email and you'll go straight to your download.
It's built for Microsoft Excel, and we recommend using it there.
No. Importing is optional. You can type what you spent straight into the Actual column. If you do import, keyword rules sort each transaction into a category, and you can add your own.
No. Nothing connects to your accounts. Anything you add, you add yourself, so your data stays in your own file.
No. This is an educational budgeting tool, not personalised financial advice.
If you like it, the paid Money Detective templates go further with bill tracking, debt payoff, couples' budgeting and more. But the free budget is yours to keep either way.
A complete Australian fortnightly budget with planned vs actual tracking, free with an instant download.
Get the free budget →