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A guide to using this spreadsheet can be found here
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If this spreadsheet has helped you, I would really appreciate it if you'd 'buy me a coffee' by donating what you can through the link below :)
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More free tools for budgeting, paying down debt, investing, rent vs buy, retirement, etc...
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https://ko-fi.com/tmoap
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If you have any comments on this tool, suggestions for improvement, or general feedback, please send me an email at:
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themeasureofaplan@gmail.com
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Welcome to the budget tracking tool!

Before you start, here are a few notes on how to best use this tool:

• To edit this file and make your own version, click File >> make a copy, and then save to your own Google Drive folder (you need to be logged in to do so)

• On the 'Category Setup' tab, you can modify the labels used to categorize your expense / income transactions. I've already included default categories which will hopefully work for most people, so there is no need to make changes here unless you'd like to

• On the 'Expenses' tab, please enter all of your expense transaction data. The intention is for you to enter each expense transaction as a separate row (e.g., $2 coffee, $10 lunch, $50 clothing, etc.). Note that most banks will let you export / download your transaction data. Please download in excel / CSV format. Copying and pasting from there will make inputting your transactions much easier - please paste as values when possible (edit >> paste special >> paste values only)

• On the 'Income' tab, please enter all of your income transaction data (same process as the 'Expenses' tab)

• On the 'Budget Targets' tab, enter your target monthly amounts for your expenses and income by category

• After that, the 'Dashboard' tab will update all of the summary charts automatically. You can easily view different time periods (use cell C2), and also get a detailed look at a single expense category over time (use cell O3)

• For a deeper dive, use the 'Historical Comparison' tab to see how your spending / income / savings was broken down by category, in one time period versus another (for example, 2020 versus 2019)

• You can use the 'Comparison to Budget Targets' tab to see how your actual spending / income / savings compared against your targets in different time periods

• Note: This spreadsheet tends to run a little bit slowly, so please give it some time to recalculate, especially when switching between different time periods on the dashboard tab (refreshing usually takes 5 - 10 seconds)

• If you are having issues with the file, please follow the steps listed in the "troubleshooting guide" (see link below)
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Troubleshooting guide link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cT-MVaNSj5-TTubP6j7Df9y9wxdFckg-0kUrjdAhTnU/edit#gid=944042521
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