Top Free Monthly and Weekly Budget Planners

Who better to ask this question than the man himself—J. Money, founder of BudgetsAreSexy.com:

Budgets are awesome. They make you more confident, which in turn makes you sexier! By giving each of your dollars a mission you stay in control and write your story vs. the other way around. Even when you fail, you win, because you are actively working on it and can pinpoint what went wrong!

J. Money, founder of BudgetsAreSexy.com

• Make it simple.

• Make it quick.

Boom. I cracked the code.

Here’s the main page of the monthly budget planner. I don’t want to give too much away, but within this one tab, you can enter your income and then immediately get a proposed budget that you can follow. All the main expense categories are already pre-populated, and it’s plug-and-play. There are some wicked-sweet comparison charts, too.

Click the button below—it’ll take you to our shop page. With a small investment, you’ll get a digital download sent to your email to start planning your budget right away.

If you get paid weekly, you’ll be more interested in our weekly budget Excel template. Just enter your weekly income in this file, and the sheet automatically turns that into a monthly figure and then fills out the ideal budget based on your weekly paycheck. Then use the ideal budget figures to form your personal budget. Finally, track your actual expenses in the far right column. Use the charts and graphs to see where you can improve.

Click the “Start now” button to download the weekly budget spreadsheet from our shop.

The most popular budget tracker we offer is the monthly budget spreadsheet. The monthly view lets you create your tracker for the current month, update your calendar, and move on to the next month when you’re ready. It’s simple, quick, and feels great once you have a solid budget plan.

Some people get a paycheck weekly, which makes it challenging to plan monthly. For instance, they’d have to translate their income into a monthly format. Thankfully, this tool calculates that automatically.

Our budget templates have dedicated tabs if you’re hardcore and want to plan and track your money by the day. There’s a full calendar for 2024, leading us to our next point.

Most budget worksheets give you a monthly view, and that’s it. That’s really not helpful since life constantly changes and often in an instant. One month is never like the next, so we offer you a calendar view where you can plan and track actuals each day, all in one place.

If you’re more into planning for the year, our calendar includes the entire 2024 calendar year (with both days and dates). You could budget out each day for the whole year if you wanted. (If you actually do this, I want to know. You might become my new hero.)

Here’s a look at the budget calendar starting in January:

This one is super important. What’s the point of budgeting if you’re never going to track how you’re spending against it?

We set up the main budget view right next to the actuals, so you can compare and contrast how much you spent vs. how much you budgeted in each category. (And, spoiler alert to an upcoming benefit, we also offer charts that will help you analyze your spending.)

The talking heads on TV often make finance sound so complicated. It doesn’t have to be. Case and point—cash flow analysis. It sounds fancy, but it’s pretty simple, and our templates make it even easier.

Cash flow analysis is simply reviewing how much cash you have in your account. With the calendar budget view, you can get a daily look at your cash and make sure there’s enough money there for those big upcoming bills.

A zero-based budget means you plan out every dollar of your income (and not just the dollars you’re going to spend).

Plan your mortgage and car payments, but also make a budget for how much you will save and invest. No surprise, our budget spreadsheet does all of that—so yes, it’s a zero-sum budget template.

Read more:

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Finally, we’ve got some nifty charts and graphs to help you better understand your numbers. One chart shows the “Ideal budget” vs. “Your budget” vs. “Your actual spend,” and the others show the percentage of spending by category.

First up, the single guy (we’ll call him Reggie) with some pretty straightforward income and expenses:

• His income is $3,000 a month.

• Rents a room for $700 a month.

• Has a hatchback with a $200 payment.

• He spends about $150 a month on groceries and rarely goes out to eat.

• He has just a couple of debts:

  • $200/mo for student loans

  • $100/mo for credit cards

• His other expenses are pretty common and straightforward.

Here’s what this monthly budget example looks like:

He has no kids or pets, so we have zeroed out those sections. Look at the ideal budget vs. the monthly budget for this single guy.

First, he’s not saving any money and not giving either (not good for his future or his personal well-being).

Second, it looks like he’s overspending in the following categories:

• Auto—his car payment is weighing him down.

• Debt payments—ideally, he shouldn’t have any. He’s got student loans and credit card debt.

• Personal—he’s spending more on himself than he can afford, considering his income.

Monthly budget example with actuals: The single guy

Let’s say Reggie gets through one month of recording his actual spending.

What does that look like?

And how did he do?

By viewing the budget chart, it’s pretty clear Reggie overspent in “Auto,” and he blew it in “Food” and “Personal” as well (see the mountains of light-blue bars).

By looking at the table, you can quickly see he overspent in the following categories:

• Gas

• Groceries

• Restaurants

• Clothes

• Entertainment

He made $3,000 and spent $3,465 that month. Not good, Reggie.

By overspending in the month, his credit card balance went up, so his minimum payments will likely jump as well, making it even harder for him to stick to his $3,000 budget next month. (Sidebar—We also offer debt snowball tools if you want to get out of debt.)

The single-male budget was pretty simple, but perhaps you’re interested in an example of a household budget with kids and pets. We heard you. Here you go.

Our sample couple is Jon and Jessie. Between the two of them, they earn $2,000 a week. They have two kids—one’s in school, and one’s in daycare. They own a house, and both have car payments.

Let’s have a look at their ideal budget, their actual budget, and their monthly spending—all lined up on the first tab of the weekly budget template:

Looking at the table or the budget charts, you can see their house payment is in line, but their car costs are killing them. Also, their kids’ and food costs are higher than recommended. When their actuals landed, they had absolutely nothing to give or invest.

To truly get ahead, they will have to tighten their budget, get their cars paid off (or sold), and put money away for their future. If they don’t, they’ll be broke for life.

And let’s be honest, even the most carefree among us don’t want to run out of money later in life.

Read more:

Let’s say you download the budget worksheet. How do you fill it out?

You’ve probably gathered how to do the first steps by now with our sneak peeks and budget examples, so we’ll walk through this quickly.

First, enter your total income after tax for the current month. The ideal budget will populate right after you hit enter.

Second, fill in your estimated budget for the month. If you have expense items that aren’t listed, include them in the most relevant category in the “Other” line. Your total budget should equal your total income. If you have extra dollars to spend, put them in your long-term savings line.

If you have more spending than income, you’ll have to find something to cut out—otherwise, you’ll continually be going backward financially. Finally, track your monthly spending in the “Actual Spend” column.

The budgeting calendar is one of the most powerful tools out there. In this view, you plan and spend every dollar and can quickly see if you’re heading toward trouble. How do you fill it out?

Click the “Budget Calendar View” tab.

Below is an example of a $5,000 budget. It looks daunting at first, but it’s pretty simple.

First, enter your beginning bank account balance in the upper right-hand cell (i.e., the amount you have at the beginning of the month). Then start filling in your expenses on the day you expect them to hit.

For instance:

• The mortgage might always hit on the 1st, so enter it in the first line and under the category “Home.”

• Then, on the 2nd, you might have your son’s daycare bill due, so enter that on the 2nd under “Kids.”

Start with all the items that consistently land on the same date each month—the credit card bill, car payment, student loan bill, medical insurance, life insurance, subscriptions, and so forth.

Then, take your best guess on when the other expense items will hit. Your actual spend calendar tab will work the same way, except you’ll enter each daily expense when it happens. You won’t need to guess.

Read more:

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Click this link for the free downloadable monthly budget template. The download will appear in the lower left of your screen. Just click it and open it up in Excel (or Numbers for Mac users).

Or, if you prefer Google Sheets, then click into a blank Sheet, click File, Open, then Upload, and upload your recent budget template download.

Click this link for the free downloadable weekly budget template.

Again, this file is best for those who get paid weekly and want to budget expenses monthly. The download will appear in the lower left of your screen. Click it to open it up in Excel (or Numbers for Mac users).

Or, if you use Google Sheets, then click into a blank Sheet, click File, Open, then Upload, and upload your recent budget template download.

Tiller is a budget template that’s built in Excel.

It might initially sound like an ordinary template, but they took it one massive step further. They set it up so you can link your Excel budget sheet directly to your bank accounts. Yes, you can get your detailed transactions directly into Excel (or Google Sheets) and then build your budget from there. It’s pretty incredible.

The look isn’t super pretty, and it takes a few steps to get the bank linking to work, but once you get it all set up, this budget tool is pretty slick. Try it for free for the first 30 days. If you still love the tool and want to continue with it, there’s an annual fee of $79.

I started using Mint over a decade ago. This free service/app lets you enter your budget, link to your bank and investment accounts, and get daily updates about your transactions. It even automatically categorizes your spending.

Mint has become quite commercialized over the years, but it’s still a powerful tool that I recommend.