What is in the budget?

A budget is just a tool to help you plan how you spend and save your money. I can certainly assist you in creating your budget. Here's a basic example of a monthly budget:

1. **Income**:

- List your sources of income, such as your salary, side gig earnings, or any other regular income.

- Use one column for the income source name and another for the amount.

2. **Expenses**:

- List all your monthly expenses, categorize them, and allocate budgeted amounts to each category.

- Common expense categories include:

- Housing (rent/mortgage, utilities)

- Transportation (car payment, gas, insurance)

- Groceries

- Dining out

- Entertainment

- Health and Fitnesss

- Debt payments (credit cards, loans)

- Savings (emergency fund, retirement)

- Other (miscellaneous expenses)

3. **Budgeted Amount**:

- In a separate column, estimate the amount you plan to spend on each expense category for the month.

4. **Actual Amount**:

- After the month ends, track your actual expenses in another column. This is where you'll record what you actually spent in each category.

5. **Difference (Budgeted - Actual)**:

- Create a column to calculate the difference between your budgeted amount and the actual amount spent for each category. This will help you see where you overspent or underspent.

6. **Total Income and Expenses**:

- At the bottom of the income and expense columns, calculate the total income and total expenses. Use Excel's SUM function for this.

7. **Remaining Funds (Total Income - Total Expenses)**:

- Calculate the remaining funds by subtracting your total expenses from your total income.

8. **Visual Representation**:

- You can create a bar chart or pie chart to visualize your expenses, showing which categories consume the most of your budget.