Personal Budget Worksheet
This personal budget worksheet is your opportunity to interactively look at your budget to bring it in balance. At any point you can print out your work, play with it off-line and then come back and finish what you were doing. One thing I must emphasize about these free printable budget worksheets is that it is only a guide. Your particular situation may or may not fit the guidelines provided by this site.
A Little Background
The interactive budget spreadsheet that we have created is based upon the percentage guides developed by Crown Financial Ministries. Crown Financial Ministries went through a lot of work and canvased many people living in the United States of America who were living on a balanced budget. These people were in varying economic situations all across the nation. If you want to see Crown Financial Ministries' Percentage Guidelines in PDF format for downloading, click on the name of the percentage guide that you would like to see:
Singles
Single Parent
Family of Two (Married Couple)
Family of four
Family of four (High Housing Costs Areas)
Family of Six
A new window will open for you to view the Percentage Guides. For those of you who are visiting from outside the United States of America, these percentage guides may or may not have any relevance. Hopefully they will still provide useful information to you.
A Note About Taxes
If you are outside the United States of America you will have to apply your own tax rate. If you are from inside the United States of America you will know that the tax structure is always changing from year-to-year. The tax percentage used is based on year 2003 rates for Social Security, federal and state taxes. It does not include the Earned Income Credit, which could alter the figure significantly. The food percentage is for money spent on food and does not include the reduction that would result from using food stamps or the food bank. In some cases earned income credit will apply. It may be possible to increase the number of deductions to lessen the amount of tax paid per month. Review the last tax return for specific information. All guideline tax percentages do not reflect the earned income credit.
A Note About Percentages
By necessity the percentages are a conglomerate of many people's expenses. Not everyone has every expense. Therefore, on your Personal Budget Worksheet (sheet 2), you will see that the last category is "school/child care". If you have these expenses a little bit will have to be taken from the previous allocations to pay for your school/child care expenses. In short, categories 3-13 percentages total 100%. And since the new rule is to not spend more than you earn your percentages for those categories will have to be somewhat less to cover your education/childcare expenses.
A Note About Your Personal Information
This budget template helps you automate your personal budgeting process. All you need do is fill in the blanks with your information and the calculations for your personal budget worksheet are done automatically for you. I do not keep any of your personal information. Let me repeat, I do not keep ANY of your personal information! In the form you will see which Crown Financial Ministries' Percentage Guides is being used to compare your information. Feel free to play with the budget template. But again I will emphasize that this is intended to only be a guideline to help you evaluate your spending and see where your spending might be out of bounds.
Personal Budget Worksheet Instructions
1. Fill out the Basic Information Form (first worksheet). Various options will be available depending on your answers to the questions.
2. Fill out your Personal Budget Worksheet (second worksheet) with more in-depth questions. This is where your personal budget worksheet will have your actual spending. It is best if you have tracked your spending for 60-90 days, a year is even better! This budget template is a good one to print out a few blank copies to work with off-line.
3. The Budget Analysis Form (third worksheet) is where your actual spending is compared to people in a similar economic strata who are living on a balanced budget. You will be able to see how much more or less you are spending in each category compared to others who are living on a balanced budget. You can then print off the sheet and use it to bring your spending into balance.
No Cause For Alarm
The fact that you might be spending a little bit more in one category is not cause for alarm. There are many things that might lead to that situation. This is really to give you a clue about which spending areas might be really out of balance. The real goal here is to be a good steward of the resources that God has provided to you and to live within your means. Remember, you will never go deeper in debt if you spend less than you earn.
Here are some useful tools to help you get your finances in order:
Free Printable Budget Worksheet
Loan Calculator
Investment Calculator
Accelerated Debt Repayment Calculator
By Crown Financial Ministries
Each tool will display in separate window or tab.
Biblical Personal Budgeting Homepage from Personal Budget Worksheet
