Free Budget Template: A Simple Tool to Help You Track Your Money

Add your income and expenses to this monthly budget planner, and we'll show how your spending aligns with the 50/30/20 rule.

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Updated Feb 18, 2026

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Creating a budget can feel overwhelming — until you have a simple tool that shows you exactly where your money should go. A good budget planner helps you understand your spending, cover your essentials and still make progress on savings or debt.

NerdWallet’s budget worksheet uses the 50/30/20 rule to help you do just that.

NerdWallet free budget template

The choice is yours. Download our spreadsheet to create a budget, or complete our online budget planner quiz flow. Both options are free.

Add your monthly income, expenses and any contributions to savings or debt repayment. We'll total up your needs, wants and savings and debt and compare it with the 50/30/20 breakdown so you can make adjustments if needed.

Information to gather before you build your budget

Before using the free budget spreadsheet, collect a few key pieces of financial information:

✅ Take-home pay: Your monthly income after taxes. A recent pay stub will likely be the easiest place to find this information.

✅ Fixed expenses. Costs that stay the same each month, like rent, insurance, loan payments, child care and memberships. Check account statements to find recurring charges and their amounts.

✅ Variable costs. Costs that change month to month, including utilities like electricity and water, groceries, fuel costs, shopping, dining out, travel and entertainment. Look back at past transactions to estimate your spending in these categories.

✅ Debts, including interest. Include all debts and interest — credit cards, medical bills, student loans and more.

Having these details ready will make creating your budget quicker and more accurate.

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About the authors

Lauren Schwahn

Lauren Schwahn is a writer at NerdWallet who covers credit scoring, debt, budgeting and money-saving strategies. She contributed to the "Millennial Money" column for The Associated Press and managed a team of writers producing content for the series. Her work has also been featured by USA Today, MSN, The Washington Post and more. Lauren has a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is based in San Francisco.

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Amanda Barroso

Amanda Barroso, Ph.D., is a writer and content strategist helping consumers navigate budgeting, credit building and credit scoring. Before joining NerdWallet, Amanda wrote about demographic trends at the Pew Research Center and earned a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.

Her work has been featured by the Associated Press, Washington Post and Yahoo Finance.

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