Yearly Spending Tracker

While online banking is the most widely used form of money tracking, it can sometimes be reliable. No access to internet and the vulnerability to hackers is always a risk. The Yearly Spending Tracker is a way to organize your own purchases plus automatically calculate what you spend on fuel, groceries, etc.

How to use the Excel Spending Tracker

The download link below will open your Excel file with pre-populated text to help guide you. Ignore the top column with the balance total and move to the right side column in gray. Under “Category”, change or edit the entries to fit what you spend your money on. For instance, if school is not a factor, change it to “Restaurants”. Ignore the total amounts next to the categories.

Next, fill in the light gray and white lines just as a bank statement would. Include the method of payment, the date, a brief description of the cost (or deposit), and amount. Make the first entry a deposit of how much money you current have, then as you add more withdrawals and deposits, the balance will automatically update. This will be reflected in the top dark gray bar.

To the left, you’ll see that the total amount for each category has been calculated. You see how much per week/month/year you’ve spent on each category and decide where to cut costs if you’re looking to budget.

Tips on using the Yearly Spending Planner

• Make a new template if you want to track your spending by week or month. Then, compare the totals of each category to see if your budget is working.
• Compare your own Excel tracking to your bank statements. This will help you detect fraud or inaccurate charges.
• File the Excel sheets in an unexpected place. Label a folder “Recipes” and then put your templates as names of different recipes. This way, no one but you can access this information.

Download the Yearly Spending Tracker

Template courtesy of Microsoft.