10 Great Excel Templates for Planning your Household Budget

Planning your family’s budget can be quite a hassle when you take into consideration all of the financial aspects that go into running a household. From the cost of basic food and domestic necessities to loans, mortgages, retirement funds and even college tuitions, running the “family business” can be quite the handful.

Here are ten fantastic Microsoft Excel spreadsheet templates that can help make planning and executing a successful household budget a lot easier and less stressful.

1. Family monthly budget planner

This is a simple yet all-encompassing planning template which allows you to put your plan out and correlate your family budget needs all in one place. Take into consideration all expenses and earning in order to know ahead of time how much money you need for everything. This is also a great way to find out where you are spending the most money unnecessarily and where you can cut down on spending in order to save money.

2. Buy vs. rent home calculator

This is a very big decision that everyone has to make at one point in their lives. Everyone’s financial and family situation is different, so one option is not always better than the other. Take all of your financial information into consideration with the help of this template and decide whether renting or buying is the best option for your current financial situation.

3. Check register

Balancing a checkbook can be a real pain. If you are prone to making mistakes in your math, let this Excel spreadsheet help you out. Not only will the math always be accurate, but it will be much clearer and easier to follow than the handwritten calculation in your checkbook.

4. Loan calculator

If you are need deep in loans and are can’t keep up with them all on your own anymore, give this template a try. It will help you calculate your loans and debts with interest rates and loan periods so that you will be able to make the best possible plan for paying all of them off on time.

5. College costs calculator

It is never too early to start putting money aside for your children’s education. This template couldn’t be easier to use. All you have to do is fill in the cells like you were doing a survey and Excel will calculate and give you a fairly accurate estimate of how much you will need, which will allow you to start planning for college properly.

 6. 401(k) retirement account planner

A lot of people have a hard time keeping up with their retirement plans. This template will allow you to “put it all on paper” and give you the insight you need to plan your retirement savings better in order to reach all of your financial goals. This template will help you to estimate your accounts over time accurately.

7. Credit card use log

Keeping track of credit card debt and payments can be very time consuming, especially if you have more than one – which most people do. This template helps you to keep all of your credit cards in line without and pay off your debt without the unneeded hassles and headaches.

8. Personal monthly budget planning

This is a great template for personal budget use. It’s also a great think to use if you want to teach your children about financial responsibility and get them to keep track of the money they make or receive from their parents and the way they spend it. The template allows you to calculate your projected and actual income and then gives you a balance summary in the end once all expenses are noted.

9. Mortgage loan refinance calculator

If you are in the market for a mortgage refinancing, use this template to help you make the right decision. This spreadsheet will allow you to compare your current mortgage deal with the possible options you are looking at for refinancing so that you will make the best financial decision possible.

10. Retirement budget

If the house is paid off, the college funds are full, and everything else is going according to plan, you can use this template to plan your perfect retirement. Feed the spreadsheet your ideal age for retirement and then calculate expected expenses and retirement earnings in order to find out how much you are going to need to retire in style.

Best of all, Microsoft offers all of these financial spreadsheet templates for free and there are many more available that can help you with other aspects of your household budget that might not have been covered with these ten.