Choose a realistic income to plan around, account for the expenses ahead, and decide what your money needs to do before the month begins.
Budget Breakdown is a reusable Google Sheets workbook built to help you make the plan. The calculations happen in the background so you can focus on building a plan that works for you.
One-time purchase. Make your own copy and use it month after month.
It's easy to build a budget around the income you usually make, the bills you remember, and the expenses happening right now.
But income can change. Annual bills get forgotten. An expense you know is coming might require more than its normal monthly amount because you haven't started saving for it yet.
Before deciding how to use your money, it helps to answer a few questions first.
Budget Breakdown walks you through three connected parts of the planning process.
If your income changes, enter your recent income history and see several ways you could build your budget. If you also have steady income, add it in and the workbook combines the two.
You decide which number makes sense for your situation. That becomes the planning income used throughout your budget.
Plan for monthly bills, everyday expenses, savings, debt payments, flexible spending, and whatever else matters to you.
As you assign your planning income, Budget Breakdown keeps track of the difference. And $0 doesn't mean spending everything — money set aside for savings, future expenses, or other goals is still part of the plan.
The goal is to decide what you want your money to do before you start spending it.
There's still income to account for.
Your full planning income is accounted for.
You'll see how much needs to change.
Annual bills and irregular expenses are easy to underestimate because they don't show up in a typical month. Add an expense, how much you'll need, when it's due, and anything you've already saved.
Budget Breakdown gives you two different numbers: what you need to set aside now to catch up, and what you'd normally set aside each month going forward.
A built-in walkthrough showing you where to start and how the workbook fits together.
Compare different ways of planning around steady and variable income.
Build your monthly plan and account for your full planning income.
See the plan together, including your status and ongoing non-monthly set-aside.
Calculate what you need to catch up now and what you'll normally need going forward.
You could build all of this yourself. Budget Breakdown is for when you'd rather start with the system already built and spend your time making the decisions.
Budget Breakdown brings the pieces together so you can see your planning income, how much you've assigned, what's still unaccounted for, and what your non-monthly expenses require.
Your normal ongoing set-aside for irregular expenses is visible alongside your budget too, but it isn't automatically added to your plan. That's intentional. The workbook gives you the information.
Budget Breakdown doesn't tell you what percentage of your income should go toward groceries, savings, fun, or anything else. Your priorities are yours.
Instead, it helps you understand what you're actually working with, account for what's ahead, and build a plan where the numbers work.
You can rename categories, add your own, remove what doesn't apply, and build around the way your life actually works.
I originally built Budget Breakdown for myself because I wanted more than a list of monthly expenses.
Before I built my budget, I wanted to know what I could realistically plan with, what expenses were coming, how much I needed to set aside, and whether the plan I was making actually worked. That planning step became an important part of how I manage my money.
Budget Breakdown turns that process into a reusable system, with the calculations handled for you.
You bring your numbers.
Budget Breakdown helps you make sense of them.
I build practical systems that make information easier to understand so you can see what's happening and decide what to do next. Budget Breakdown follows the same philosophy. It doesn't make financial decisions for you. It gives you better information so you can make those decisions yourself.
Better information.
Better decisions.
A good fit if
You want to plan before the month begins, account for all of the income you're planning with, prepare for irregular expenses, or build around income that isn't always predictable. It's especially useful if you want help with the calculations without having a budgeting system dictate your priorities.
Probably not if
You're looking for automatic bank syncing, transaction tracking, account management, or an app that tells you exactly how much you should spend in each category.
This is a planning system, not a spending tracker.
Choose an income you can realistically plan around, account for what's ahead, and decide what your money needs to do. Then start the month knowing your plan adds up.
After purchase, you'll receive a link to make your own copy in Google Sheets.
Not sure where to start? The Introduction tab walks you through the workbook in order.