It is always best not to play any guessing games when it comes to budgeting. The use of a expense calculator for monthly budgeting is of the utmost importance for many reasons and we will help you to visualise your finances in an easy-to-understand manner.
Take your time to sum up your monthly budget with all of the income sources and expenses accordingly. Do not forget to include any personal, business or basic expenses you encounter on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis as it is very important to establish a clear picture of your financial situation. Review and understand where your money goes and track your expenses right from the start.
No cost is to small to be included and generally speaking, you would want a very comprehensive overview when using an expenses calculator for budgeting. Something that most tend to underestimate is the importance of emergency funds.
You always want to be prepared for the unexpected and if you did not do so by now, start creating a budget and dedicate it to just this purpose. Chances are one day you will be very glad you did. Ideally, your emergency funds should cover all expenses for at least 5 or 6 months. This safety net will give you a little time to react in case things turn south. Use our budgeting calculator to establish your personal understanding of your expenses.
Expenses Calculators Are Friendly
Wherever you happen to find yourself in life, having a spectacular expense calculator at your disposal is greatly beneficial. If you want to remain frugal while living a comfortable life, knowing just how much money you have, will help you achieve just that.
Knowing your monthly and yearly expenses/income will help you manage many different aspects of your day, including whether you have enough money for rent, food, clothing, and much more. Using a tool such as a calculator to determine your expenses and income is one of the many great ways to save money and stay happy.
We will be going over just how to keep track of your expenses with tools freely available on the internet for anybody to use. When I type “anybody”, that means you!
The top expenses that people need to track are usually their rent and groceries. Everybody needs a shelter and some food to stay healthy, so I usually place the most emphasis on pay for those two first. What’s the point of living if you cannot enjoy it? Entertainment is usually the third category that I calculate. (Hint: I place family gatherings and such under”‘entertainment”)
One other important reason why many will find a living expense calculator useful is to organize their finances. Every receipt that I receive goes straight into a folder. At the end of each week, I enter the receipt totals into my excel expense file. This is useful so that I know just how much money I have for each of the remaining days that are left in the month.
I am rolling in some cash the first two weeks of a month and then I become more strict when I get to the last week or two. Sometimes I don’t have enough money, but I stay true to the living expense totals that calculated at the beginning of the month. If I go past my spending limits that basically makes all the other numbers obsolete. If I go surpass one limit, it’ll be much easier for me to do the same in another category. Just like procrastination, not staying loyal to the goals that you set can begin to snowball and easily put you into the negative.
Now let’s get down to business, shall we? It’s time to talk about some of my favorite expense calculators. I use many different forms of calculators. The two main types that I use day-to-day are Excel (spreadsheets) and online forms. Both different options have their own individual pros and cons.
Excel Expenses Calculator
We are all busy people, living in a busy world. There is nothing more time consuming and possibly frustrating than sitting down to pay bills and then realize that your math is totally off somewhere. Using an expense calculator will help you to make sure all of your weekly or monthly calculations are correct when you are working on paying bills or your budget.
Fiscal responsibility can be a tough nut to crack if it is not something you were taught growing up. Why make learning how to budget your finances tough by doing manual calculations when there are so many great expense calculators out there in the world? If you did an online search for “expense calculators” Google would hit you with a million results and out of those, many will be free to use with no sign up. There is no reason why any of us should be struggling with math, wasting time, when we could be done in ten minutes at the end of every evening when using an expense calculator that literally does the work for us.
Using online expense calculators can help you to get out of debt.
As soon as I boot up my computer in the morning, I open up my financial Excel file. This is the first thing that I look at in the morning and the last thing at night. As you might imagine, Excel has a variety of pros. For me, Excel is generally easier to use just because I am familiar with the layout. I’ve been using Excel for a number of years so doing a few calculations is no harder than brushing my teeth.
The great thing about Excel that can make it superior to an online based expenses calculator is the fact that it is locally based. This means that if the internet happens to go out, I will still have complete access to my financial file. This is why I put tons of more trust into a software based calculator rather than an online calculator. In no way am I saying that an online expenses calculator is useless, I use a few frequently!
Excel has pretty and beautiful customizable graphs. This point pretty much speaks for itself. I can show my family the monthly frugal budget, along with a line chart and pie chart. Graphs make everything much simpler to comprehend. Numbers become shapes and shapes are more familiar and family friendly than patterns of numbers so, they are likely to pay attention longer while we are discussing the boring numbers.
The last major argument towards using Excel is the fact that you have the ability to save the file. Some online living expense calculators may save cookies but usually they are just simple forms. No account is needed for most calculators. This means that you cannot save; so you just end up having to calculate and then record the data on paper or on your computer.
ONLINE EXPENSES CALCULATOR – This is the part that you’ve all been waiting for. You most likely landed on this page while searching for an online living expenses calculator. Simple or complex, there are only a few that I like. All-in-one is a necessity to any calculator. If there are multiple different pages on a website to find the results, count me out.
One major benefit of an online based calculator is that webmasters usually update the calculator frequently. The categories are up-to-date and useful. If there is a glitch in a calculator, a webmaster can go in and fix that glitch. I cannot completely say the same for a spreadsheet or text file.
Getting into the habit of using an expense calculator while doing your daily, weekly, monthly or yearly budget saves you time and money. You will be able to see more quickly and clearly where your money has gone, how much you have left and you will know directly if you have anything left after putting in all of your expenses. If you have put all of your known expenses into the calculator and you have nothing left over you will have to figure out where you can cut back to save yourself some money each month. There is nothing wrong persay by doing the math manually but, seeing how we are humans and that we have the ability to make mistakes when we are tired and distracted, it would be a better idea to use an expense calculator and get the numbers right the first time, all the time.
Budgeting with an expenses calculator saves time and “Time is money”!
Online expenses calculators, most of the time, happen to be easier to fill out. There are boxes next to the calculator. Just fill in your numbers and hit the calculate button. I don’t know if things could really be any simpler than that.
Everything is set up for you. No need to research the categories to build an expense calculator in Excel, as I said in a previous point, everything you’ll need is laid out on the page for you. Best of all; calculations are instant in some responsive calculators. Fill in a field with $5, and the total will instantly say $5. Simply brilliant!
Why use an expense calculator in the first place?
We jumped straight into what types of calculators that would be right for you. But honestly, why? Using any income and expense calculator will just take time out of your day. Let’s face it… the more that you spend time on useless tasks, the less time that you’ll have your day. Let me let you on in a little secret of mine. Using a calculator will actually save you time in the long run. Sure it’ll take you 5 minutes a day, but it’ll end up saving you an hour a day in manual calculations.
Let’s face it, the more effectively that you spend your money, the more money and time that you’ll have in the end. Start figuring out how much money that you actually have to spend and you’ll save time. Days can be easily wasted by worrying and stressing about debt. To solve that issue, just go ahead and eliminate your debt by budgeting with an expense calculator that, will help you set and reach your savings goals. If you can save money by using an expense calculator you will be more apt to use your savings to pay down and eventually pay off all debt and start saving or investing for the future. That’s what I did and now I am much happier than I have even been.
