Budget Worksheet

This budget worksheet is intended to prompt you to think about everything you may spend money on.  Obviously not everyone will spend money on all of these things.  All places for entering data (except the income from pay checks) calls for entering the information on a "monthly" basis.  If you make only yearly payments on some expense items divide the yearly amount by 12 and enter the result.  If it is easier to think about how much you spend on some item on a yearly basis do the same calculation.  If you pay some debt "quarterly" - every 3 months - divide the amount you pay quarterly by 3 and enter that result.  For payments made every six months divide by 6 and enter the result.

The worksheet keeps a running total of Your income and expenses and under "Bureau of Labor Statistics - Average $" and "Bureau of Labor Statistics - %" compares your budget figures to the Bureau of  Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditures in 2002 - a study that attempts to determine "average" expenses for households in the United States.  This study is used by various governmental agencies to "test" budgets individuals submit to see if where budgets differ from average.

You can use this worksheet to determine where you may be spending more than other families.  I hope that this will help some families gain control of their expenses before their finances get out of control.  It could also help gain control of your finances if you are beginning to experience trouble.

If you realize that you cannot pay back your debt I hope that eventually you can download this worksheet and send it to me for your budget if you decide to file a bankruptcy through me. 

 Click on the Export to Excel button to save your spreadsheet in Excel or to print your spreadsheet.  To save it you will need to choose a location on your hard disk, a file name (preferably your last name and the date - "yyyymmdd"), and change the file type to ".xls".