Simple Excel Budget Planner – For Freelancers & Solo Professionals (Free)

A simple yet powerful Excel-based budgeting tool — designed for freelancers, consultants, and anyone managing monthly income with variable flows.

This free template allows you to take full control of your personal or solo-business finances by tracking your expected and actual income and expenses month by month. At the beginning of each month, you enter your starting balance, project your income and expenses, and then track your real numbers as the month progresses. The tool shows you the variance between plan and reality, so you can evaluate how accurate your financial expectations were.

By visualizing how your cash flows in and out, this application helps you better understand your spending behavior, find areas to cut costs, and improve your planning accuracy over time. It is particularly useful for freelancers, consultants, and solopreneurs who experience fluctuating income across months.

The file uses only Excel formulas — no macros or VBA — so it's lightweight, fast, and compatible with all desktop versions of Excel (Windows/macOS). The layout is clean and print-ready: each month fits perfectly on a single A4 sheet, ideal for those who prefer a physical record of their finances.

You can duplicate the sheet for each new month, or save monthly copies to your archive for long-term budgeting.