Insights From Google Docs' Annual Budget Sheet

Photo by Braydon Anderson on Unsplash

I had created my own, rough budget spreadsheet for this year, but I wanted something a little more "fancy." Google Docs has an Annual Budget template, so I decided to check that out. It looked pretty good, so I took the time to fill in the past six months worth of income and expenses. The results were shocking! Was I really spending that much on clothes?! Was I really saving so little?! Was I really making that much extra money on the side?! This simple spreadsheet showed me exactly what I was doing wrong and what I had been doing right (not much!).

The Good
Most of the budget's categories are at $0 total. In fact, I deleted some that will always be $0 (ex. Children). Basically, when I spend money, it's on limited things and I don't have bills. I'll take this as a good sign, since it means I have less places to worry about cutting back. I can just focus on those few categories that are out of control.

I was making a decent amount of extra money by selling my clothes that no longer fit. I've been slacking in this area for the last couple of months, but seeing the numbers right in front of me has me extra motivated to get back to it! In fact, my to-do list for this week comprises mostly of tasks related to selling off the rest of my no-longer-needed wardrobe. This will earn me several hundred more dollars if I can get everything or mostly everything sold off.

The Bad
I was only saving 23% of my income on average. Um, where's the rest of it?! I'm doing better than the national average, but I'm a far cry away from the 50%+ where I want to be! Which brings me to...

The Ugly
An average of $813.69 per month on clothes! Well, there's where all of my money is going. That's almost two weeks of pay! On clothes! Clearly I need to get this under control. I've been doing well so far this month, since I resisted all of the holiday sales. I need to continue to resist and add that $800 to my monthly savings!

This simple spreadsheet was extremely eye opening. It's one thing to know that I spend a lot of money on certain things (i.e. clothing), but it's an entirely other thing to see the hard numbers right there!

Now that I know exactly where I stand financially, I can focus on building my savings, paying off my debt, and moving toward financial freedom!