It’s Friday, you know what that means? It’s payday – yay! Unfortunately that also means it’s Budget day {insert exasperated sigh here} in our house. Let’s be real – budgeting is hard! It’s one of those things that you have to do as an adult but most people don’t like doing. I’m included in that group. I dislike budgeting but I know it’s something I have to do. So I procrastinate for days, avoid writing down transactions, and end up spending way more money than I should. So today I decided to write about budgeting and a few tips on how to make it easier. You don’t mind being my accountability buddy, do you?

We can all agree that budgeting is hard, right?

So how do we make it easier? The answer is technology, of course! Two of my favorite ways to budget are using spreadsheets or even better, the computer program and app called “You Need a Budget” (also known as YNAB). Let’s talk about Ynab first because I think it’s rather amazing.

“You Need a Budget” aka YNAB – Budgeting Software

YNAB is a software program for budgeting with several amazing features. First, you can import your spending directly from your bank account. This is not a requirement and I don’t use it but it’s a great feature. Second, you can split all your transactions into categories. So if you go to Target and spend money on food, toiletries, and clothing, you can split that transaction into 3 different categories. That makes it so much easier to determine how much you have left to spend in a given category.

Also, YNAB has a companion app so you can check and update your budget from your smart phone! And finally, you can sync your budget on multiple computers and devices using cloud storage on Dropbox. I absolutely love this feature because it means that Phillip and I are on the same page with our budget at all times.

The only real downside to YNAB is that it’s not free. It costs $50 per year or $5/month. It can certainly save you a lot of money though (by preventing overspending) so it’s worth it. Also, we have a referral link that will save you $6, or just a little over 10% off your first year. If you just want to try it out, they have a 34 day FREE trial that doesn’t even require a credit card. Just download YNAB and see if it’s right for you.

YNAB Alternative – Free Budget Spreadsheets

If you know that you can’t afford YNAB, that’s okay! A free alternative is to use a spreadsheet. If you don’t have a spreadsheet program, you can download Open Office for free! The name of the Open Office spreadsheet program is Calc and it works just as well as Excel, in my opinion, and it can open Excel files as well.

My favorite budgeting spreadsheet is this Monthly Budget Spreadsheet (screenshot above). It allows you to budget all of your income for the month and then you can update the actual column throughout the month to ensure you aren’t going over your budgeted amounts. It takes a bit more work than YNAB but it’s free and isn’t too difficult to use. It can help you stay on track with your budget because you get instant feedback (in the form of red negative numbers) when you overspend.

If you don’t like that spreadsheet, you can try this super simple budget. If you want something more robust, try the family budget planner. It allows you to plan out an entire year at one time and has some great charts and graphs. If none of those seem right, Vertex42 has a whole page full of free budget spreadsheet templates.

So I guess you’re wondering how our budget is coming along. It’s almost done, we just have to decide on amounts for a few more categories. Let me know how your budget is coming along and if you have any questions, just ask!