Let me tell you about my budgeting spreadsheet

A Google spreadsheet is much more manageable.

My obsession with budgeting has been fairly well established by this point. But! I’m always making new discoveries, increasing my budgeting accuracy, and trying to find new ways to save.

In an effort to have a much better understanding of how I am spending my Mad Money, a few months ago I reincarnated my budgeting spreadsheet. I’m really keen on having such a minutely detailed record of my spending - firstly, it tickles my lizard brain and secondly, I now have an answer when I ask myself two days before payday: where the hell did all my money go this week?

In fact, keeping such a spreadsheet enables me to tell you that for the period 12-26 November I spent:

• 24.21% of my spending money on food
• 9.51% on coffee
• 10.31% on booze
• 38.50% on clothes (An anomaly. I must have been feeling rich.)
• 1.46% on homeware
• 13.14% on presents or donations.

I made my spreadsheet on Google Docs so that I can make updates on my phone in real time. No collecting receipts! I can make my entry on the spreadsheet between ordering and receiving my morning coffee - so no excuses for not keeping the spreadsheet up to date. (Of course, I’ve been horrible at keeping it over the fortnight before Christmas. But I am back on that bandwagon and feeling smug. Aw yeah.)

Because I am quelle generous, I have made a shared version of my budget spreadsheet that you can download and keep. The cells that are highlighted in yellow are for you to plug in your own information - there’s a space for the date and a space for the amount of money you’ve allowed yourself per fortnight. You are of course welcome to make any changes you like to your version of the spreadsheet - mine has some pretty specific categories and the pay period might not suit you.

Another recent budgeting triumph

I have some regular appointments that were annoyingly skewing my budget and leaving me broke at unfortunate times. So in November I worked out how much I spend every two months on all the appointments, and then how much I would need to put away each fortnight to cover them.

I opened another bank account for the Appointments money - and I set up a function that automatically sweeps any money over $300 straight into my savings account. It’s like magic! Magic savings.

The whole thing has been going swimmingly. Best idea ever.

It seemed like a good idea but didn’t really pan out that way

I had a plan to reward myself for not buying coffee by putting that money into my savings account every day that I bravely and maturely made the decision not to splurge.

However, this never really happened. It was a good idea though - and, at any rate, it would show in a very real and visceral way how much I could be saving if I wasn't frittering my money away on coffee. You should try it and let me know how it goes.