Seeing the future? Come on Thrifty Maven, you are starting
to sound a little crazy. I don’t mean
literally seeing the future, I mean creating a sort of cash projection spreadsheet
so that at any given moment you can see how much money you will have in your
bank account in one week, two weeks, three weeks and so on. I began using a spreadsheet to help guide my
finances about eight years ago when I was still in college and trying to find a
way to pay my tuition. It has helped me
tremendously through the years.
The spreadsheet I created is
basically an excel document that is dated across the top and on the left hand
side has categories. The top categories
are income categories and the middle categories are expense categories and the
categories at the bottom are savings categories. You can divide the categories by color or by
simple lines. The screenshot below is an
example of how I set up my spreadsheet.
The beauty of setting up your own spreadsheet rather than
using an online budgeting tool is that everything is 100% customizable. I’ve found with a lot of budgeting tools, you
have to lump in a lot of your expenses into one broad category. I like to see exactly where I’m spending my
money so a custom spreadsheet works best for me. Feel free to play around with the categories
adding and deleting as you go until you find what works for you.
One of the main benefits of a creating your own spreadsheet
is the ability to put in all your incomes and expenses that you know will be
coming up in the future. This allows you
to plan what you can afford based on current and future income/expenses. For example, I want to make a $100 purchase
tomorrow. If I already know that I have
a big electric bill coming up in two weeks and that expense is already entered in
my spreadsheet on the date it will get paid, I will easily see if my current
$100 purchase will affect my ability to pay that electric bill.
Another advantage of making a cash projection spreadsheet is
the ability to see how much you’ve spent in a particular category during any
given time frame. You can easily see if
you’ve spent too much on groceries, going out to eat, clothes, etc.
Once you create you spreadsheet, play around with! Don’t be afraid to add and subtract
categories as you go. It will take some
time to get your spreadsheet where you want it, but it will be well worth it in
the end. There are endless
possibilities!
Thanks for reading!
Thanks for reading!
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