Description

What you get

You get 3 Sheets for 3 years of your Bare Bones Budget that are combined with each other. Each year offers 12 months to model the budget you expect to have month by month. You get 9 sub-categories for your income to adapt your new situation here. For your expenses you get the 3 overall budget categories NEED, WANT, INVEST to put in your totals. For a more detailed view, you can use another separate Sheet that separates your expenses into fixed and variable ones.

How your Calculator works

After entering your numbers, you‘ll see the result for the calculation „Income – Expenses“ month by month marked as green if you have a plus or red if you go into negative. At the end of each year the tool calculates what’s left over or missing.

A graph area visualizes your balance of that calculation. For example, if you always have a plus each month in year 1 the graph shows how this plus becomes bigger throughout the year. If you then always go into negative in year 2 the graph shows how your savings from year 1 becomes smaller. So, your balance at the end of the year get transferred from year 1 to year 2 and to year 3.

What you absolutely want to avoid during your Bare Bones Budget is missing a hole in your pocket that you have overseen. Because if so, you might need to go into debt or crushing your savings. To be best prepared you get an area with some questions for each year to answer carefully within „Food for thoughts“.

Special Bonus

In 1 separate Sheet you can split your expenses for your NEEDs and WANTs within 10 sub-categories into fixed and variable ones. A fixed expense is everything you get a bill for. That‘s a need to survive. Variables are up to your decision. Questioning which NEED is really a survival category will be an AHA-moment as you will see that there might be needs that are not set in stone.

The Calculator now adds up all of your fixed and variable expenses and visualizes them in a pie chart divided in 2 pieces. Once you realize how much of your expenses are actually variable you‘re ready to set your first new expense goal. You can do this for all of your budget categories. The tool calculates your savings per category and adds them up per month and year. Especially, the yearly view is a huge motivator to find your way that feels good to you for sticking to your savings goals. Remember, this bare bones budget is only temporary. It‘s not something forever and serves one purpose: achieving your financial goal.