Personal Expense Tracker - Google Sheet

Description
The expense tracker helps you record your daily expenses in a pre-organised monthly sheet. The aim is to help you track your expenses and to find areas of your cash spill.



The tracker first asks you to think about your most used categories of expenses such as groceries, house-related, health etc. Once you decide on your categories, the next step is to try and develop an expected monthly budget you think you will spend on those categories.


Once budgets are done, you can start recording daily expenses. The tracker automatically builds various types of analysis to give you meaningful insights into your spending.


Detailed instruction is attached in PDF with a link to Google Sheets. Click "Make a Copy", and your blank template will be available.


Step 1: Insert Categories
Categories are a great way of grouping similar types of expenses. Type your desired categories in the budget tab. I have included a few categories to start with. However, you can use or amend it.



Step 2: Develop Budget
Consider the amount you are expected to spend in each category. An expense tracker becomes more valuable if it can tell you if you are over or under-spend than expected. Therefore, to gain the most out of the tracker, estimate the amount you expect to spend on each category each month.


Step 3: Insert Expenses
Once you have decided on your categories and estimated monthly spending, you can start recording your actual expenses in each month tab. Below is the image of the month of January as an example. As the best practice, write the sequence number, date, brief description, and amount. The categories will automatically appear in the drop-down menu, so you can choose one from the one you already wrote in the budget tab. As said above, categories are the best way to group similar types of expenses.


Please note that this is not an Excel file and will not be saved on your PC. Google sheet is a web-based spreadsheet, and you need a Google account which is Free to create.