I built a Google Sheets budget tracker... give it a try?

TL;DR: I built a Google Sheet to manage my money because I otherwise suck at it and it stresses me tf out. Instead of only looking in the past at what I spent last week/month/year, the idea is to plan out my spending and prominently show what I have leftover that is ‘safe to spend.’ You can make a copy of it yourself, for free, here. I’d love any feedback you’re willing to give!

Background: Hi everyone! If you’re anything like me, I can bet you’ve had trouble managing your money at some point. One of my first summers as a teacher, I got down to less than $50 in my bank account before I finally got paid at the beginning of the school year (we got our last paychecks for the year the previous May) and I had been back to eating like I did in college for close to a month. Later, in 2015, I got ‘accepted’ as a member to a fintech bank called Simple. It’s no exaggeration to say the budgeting app they had completely changed my relationship with money. The most helpful features were that Simple would subtract whatever funds you budgeted as ‘expenses’ or ‘goals’ from your total balance and then prominently display your ‘Safe to Spend’ balance (total balance - expenses - goals = Safe to Spend) and they did it all instantly and automagically. Think of it as digital ‘envelopes’ to make sure you had your bills covered and you get the idea. My partner and I evangelized this bank to anyone who’d listen. I used that app to pay off a bunch of debt and eventually felt like I had room to breathe without constantly worrying about my bank balance, low income aside. Then one fateful day in 2021, I got an email that Simple was shutting down. If you think it’s crazy I was heartbroken about a bank closing, go check out this post on r/personalfinance to see how others took it. lol. I, for one, will never forget. :sweat_smile:

The problem: Fast forward to last year after trying a few ‘alternatives.’ Some of those alternatives were free like Simple but were also buggy as hell (One) and others were just more expensive than I could afford (Qube). There is also an app (DAS Budget) that is literally a Simple clone built by another heartbroken Simple user, but again costs more than I can afford (I get it, it’s a small dev team). I’m also accustomed to checking my Safe to Spend several times a day and some of the apps limit how many cloud syncs can be done in a day. I settled on using Ally bank and trying to make their ‘savings buckets’ work for me because, even though I can’t have more than 5 buckets, it’s at least free and has great interest rates. But I was still running out of money again or constantly pulling from my emergency fund to pay for everyday expenses I thought I’d planned out. I tried Mint but it sucked (and was also shut down very soon after) and YNAB is expensive and requires way too much manual labor. I finally decided that if all the free apps required manual labor and none of them – not even paid apps! – had anything similar to a prominent Safe to Spend, then I’d just figure out how to make it with Google Sheets. So I did and have been using it successfully for almost a year.

The solution: A friend of mine recently asked what app I use for budgeting and I sent her my budget tracker but realized it was ugly and I was kind of embarrassed to show her. I set about fixing that and I thought maybe someone here could get some use out of it as well. I’m in no way saying my solution is ‘better’ than YNAB or DAS Budget or even Qube, but it’s free and it works well enough for me. If you also just can’t get your head around YNAB or don’t want to pay for something that doesn’t just do it all for you, I’ve put my project up on GitHub with instructions on how to set it up and a link to make a copy of the workbook for you to give it a shot. I wrote a pretty detailed ‘guide’ for it and included screenshots and all the code (for Apps Script/Macros) but you’re also welcome to DM me if you have questions. I’d really appreciate any feedback you’re willing to give me, too! Anyway, here’s the link. I hope this helps someone.

This sounds super helpful. I’ve been struggling with budgeting too, so I’m definitely going to check it out.

I totally relate to your story. It’s tough managing finances, especially on a teacher’s salary. Can’t wait to try your tracker!

Cool project! Google Sheets is such a good tool for this. Did you include any templates or examples?

I loved Simple too. It’s such a bummer they shut down. Glad you found a workaround with Google Sheets.

I appreciate you sharing this. Budgeting is such a crucial skill. I’ll be sure to give your tracker a shot.