3 Ways Google Sheets Can Help You Track Your Money

Automate, visualize, and simplify your finances to grow your money as frictionlessly as possible

Google Sheets is a fantastic (free) alternative to Microsoft Excel. Real-time collaboration, powerful formulas, and clean looking charts are a few examples of the features that make Google Sheets stand out in the market of spreadsheet platforms.

I use Google Sheets on a nearly daily basis, in various areas of my life. I find it to be an especially valuable tool when it comes to tracking my finances. Here are three ways you can use Google Sheets to do just that. Enjoy!

Budgeting

When it comes to budgeting, there are essentially two ways of doing it. You can either use the prospective budget, where you allocate different amounts to the categories of spending and only allow yourself to spend that set amount each month, or you can use the retrospective budget, where you write down all your expenses and track where your money is going.

I prefer the latter, as I find it hard to stay within the limits of the prospective budget. Life has a way of being unpredictable, and you’re almost certain to break the budget in one way or another. The retrospective budget allows you to look back at what you spend too much on and adjust accordingly.

Link to spreadsheet

An example of what an ordinary budget might look like.

The spreadsheet shows you total income, expenses, and savings. It also gives you the margin (Income minus expenses) and your savings rate each month (savings divided by income). It’s a handy tool to get an overview of where your money is going and what you should focus on improving in the coming month.

If you know the total for each category (or use a calculator to figure it out) you can input it directly into the spreadsheet. However, if you only have your account statements, there’s a Summary-sheet in the document where you can input each purchase/income and it’ll calculate a total for you, which you can then input into the budget sheet.

Tracking Net Worth

I find tracking my net worth useful for getting an overview of whether I’m heading in the right direction or not. Google Sheets graph features are helpful in this regard.

The progress of my net worth over the past year, shown in the Graph-sheet of my Net Worth Spreadsheet.

Below is an example of how it looks with some numbers inserted. On the right, it shows your net worth along with a percentage indicator. Green arrow up means an increase, red arrow down means a decrease. Pretty simple, huh?

Link to spreadsheet

Here’s a step by step on how to set the spreadsheet up:

1. Select the “Net Worth” sheet. Insert the names of your accounts or assets/liabilities in the empty cells left of “Your accounts here”. If you use more than the number of accounts in the row, simply right-click one of the columns and select “Insert 1 left” (or right).
2. Insert your first few data points. Editing the graph is only possible if you’ve made an entry.
3. Select the “Graph” sheet and press “Edit chart”-button in the top row. Press “Customise”, and navigate to “Vertical axis”.
4. Set the maximum number to fit your net worth goal. Depending on the number, you may have to navigate to “Gridlines” and select a gridline number that doesn’t make your intervals look wonky. If you prefer not to show a y-axis, just make the text of the vertical axis white.

Tracking your net worth can be a good way to see if your spending is out of line with your income, or if you’re accumulating too much debt. Negative net worth means you have more debts than you have assets. A downward trend in net worth is a sign that you’re spending more than you’re making, or that you’re getting into debt at a higher rate than you’re making money.

The Conscious Spending Plan

When I read Ramit Sethi’s best-selling book I Will Teach You To Be Rich there was one concept that stuck with me particularly well. It was the concept of a Conscious Spending Plan. In short, the Conscious Spending Plan is a way to allocate your income for you to be able to spend money on the things that make you happy.

My Conscious Spending Plan has four main components; fixed costs, filling up my emergency fund, investing, and guilt-free spending. Keeping track of this can of course be done on paper, but I prefer automating the process with Google Sheets.

Link to spreadsheet

The areas marked with a yellow stripe are cells that you can change to fit your conscious spending plan, such as percentages for your investments, how much you want to spend on fixed costs, investing, emergency fund, and guilt-free spending. Play around with the spreadsheet to see how you want to create your conscious spending plan!

The most important step of the conscious spending plan is to automate the transactions from the income stage. Automate savings, investing, so that you’re not in charge of making those transactions. We’re our money’s worst enemy, which is why you want to remove the step of having to invest and save manually. Use this spreadsheet to keep track of how much money is going where.

Hopefully, you found these tips on how to use Google Sheet to track your money helpful! If you did, consider giving this article a few claps and comment on what your best money-managing tips are.

Cheers ❤

This article is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information will be accurate. Consult a financial professional before making any significant financial decisions.