Your Expenses Tracking – Expense Report – and Free Expense Tracking Software Using Excel

If you find yourself spending more than you are earning, then you will soon find yourself in trouble with your finances. Knowing how much and on what you are spending your money per month or per year may sound easy but it is not. There are people out there who get a salary every month and spend the whole lot in a month. If you ask them to account how the amount was spent, they can only account for 45% of it. The remaining 55% they just know they spent it but can not tell you how.

The average annual expenses per household in the United States of America are as follows:

1.    Food at home - $3,465

2.    Food away from home - $2,668

3.    Housing - $16,920

4.    Apparel and services - $1,881

5.    Transportation - $8,758

6.    Health Care - $2,853

7.    Entertainment - $2,698

8.    Personal Insurance and pensions - $5,336

9.    Other Expenditures - $5,060

This will total about $50,000 per year which is a large amount of money worthy the need for one to track the expenses involved. If we can track expenses in our businesses for similar amounts, then we should do it for our household expenses.

I would want to recommend a Free Expense Tracking Software Using Excel (253 KB) which you can download here. You may need to enable macros when the spreadsheet loads. The credit to the free Expense Tracking Software in excel spreadsheets goes to Peter Ponzo of Gummy Stuff.

In most households, the most common expense items are the following that we shall put in an excel spreadsheet to simplify your work:

1. Rent

2. Income Tax

3. Electricity

4. Gas

5. Water

6. Phone

7. Satellite TV

8. Water Heater Rental

9. Car Insurance

10. House Insurance

11. Umbrella Insurance

12. Snow Removal

13. Car Gas

14. Car Repairs

15. Property Repairs

16. Groceries

17. Holidays

18. Charitable Donations

19. Health Supplies

20. Pet Supplies

21. Computer Purchase

22. Computer Supplies

23. Office Supplies

24. Dentist

25. Doctor

26. Medications / Vitamins

27. Cleaning Supplies

28. Household Appliances

29. Clothing

30. Health/Beauty Supplies

31. Debt Repayment

32. Entertainment and Recreation

33. Savings

34. School/Childcare

35. Investments

In this Free Expense Tracking Software Using Excel, every month, January to December, there is a sheet with the above items. In every month there is a column for each day so that you can insert the expenses you may have for that day. It is easy, you can edit or add more items to suite your needs. This should be done in the spreadsheet named January and once done the addition will automatically show in all the other months’ worksheets.

In every month, there is a total for every item, so that if you buy groceries every day, then you can get to know the total expenses on groceries for the whole month. And then there is the grand total for all your expenses for the month.

There is another worksheet which is a summary expense for every item. This summary is as good as an Expense Report for the year. Now, when you look at the summary of the expense report you will be able to see where your money goes. This is cool for you can then get to know what you need to adjust so that you can live within your means.

You can make an extra copy so that next time you have a small project, like constructing a home, you can do a few adjustments and you can track all your expenses in the cost of your project or business needs. The sky is the limit on how you can manipulate this Expenses Tracking spreadsheet to fit your needs in tracking your expenses.

If you have been telling your spouse that household budgeting is not complex, look at that spreadsheet and think again on how to go about planning on that mega budget.

Again, may I recommend this Free Expense Tracking Software Using Excel (253 KB) which you can download here. You will need to enable your excel macros when the spreadsheet has been downloaded. Give credit to Peter Ponzo of Gummy Stuff for this free Expense Tracking Software in excel spreadsheets. May you, enjoy tracking your expenses.

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