Monthly budgets can also work well for individuals and households with irregular income, such as small business owners and freelancers. For months with a third paycheck, use it to fund your top priority short-term and long-term goals, such as vacations, retirements, emergency savings, etc.

If you are in such a situation, consider creating a monthly budget and using your first paycheck of the month to pay your bills for the second half of the month and your second paycheck to pay the bills for the first half of the next month. However, individuals and households with bi-weekly paychecks (paid every two weeks rather than twice a month) know that about twice a year they will have three paychecks in a single month. Monthly budgets tend to work best because most recurring household bills come monthly.

Most budgets align to a monthly plan for simplicity’s sake, but you can create a weekly budget, a twice-a-month budget, a quarterly budget, or an annual budget.

This Excel template is compatible with Excel 2003 and later versions.Budgets are simply plans for how you would prefer to spend your money. This also lets you allocate adequate amounts to your most important expense to your least important. Because this template shows the difference or variance, you can also keep track of your losses or of how much you have deviated from your projected amounts, or your budget. This reminds you of your plan and prevents you from overspending. In addition, this template also automatically computes the total difference between your projected cost and actual cost, as well as projected income and actual income. This template auto-computes subtotals for each expense category and for monthly incomes. This Household Budget Template Worksheet for Excel lets you plan or project your financial activities, and also fill in your actual ones so you can keep track of how much you are actually spending. Compares Projected to Actual Incomes and Expenses These expenses fall into clearly defined categories, namely: Housing, Transportation, Insurance, Food, Children, Personal Care, Taxes, Savings and Insurance, Legal, Gifts and Donations, and such. This way, you can easily plan and allocate your spending towards necessities like utilities, food, taxes and savings.

Household budget template