How to Make a Budget in Google Sheets (Step by Step, With Formulas)

Google Sheets is free, works on your phone, and is all you need for a solid budget. Here is how to build one in about 20 minutes. The key is one formula: SUMIFS.

1. Create three tabs

• Categories: one row per category with its monthly budget.
• Transactions: every income and expense.
• Summary: budget vs. actual.

2. Set up the Transactions tab

Columns: Date (A), Description (B), Category (C), Amount (D). To get a dropdown for Category, select column C, open Data → Data validation, choose "Dropdown (from a range)" and pick the category list on the Categories tab.

3. Add up each category with SUMIFS

On the Summary tab, put the category name in A2 and the month's first day in B1 (for example 2027-01-01). Then the actual spending for that category in that month is:

=SUMIFS(Transactions!D:D, Transactions!C:C, A2, Transactions!A:A, ">="&B1, Transactions!A:A, "<"&EDATE(B1,1))

Copy it down for every category. Next to it, pull in the budget and calculate what is left: =budget − actual.

4. Highlight overspending

Select the "remaining" column, open Format → Conditional formatting, and set "Less than 0" to a red fill. Now every overspent category jumps out.

5. Add a chart

Select the category, budget and actual columns, then Insert → Chart and choose a bar chart. You get budget vs. actual at a glance.

6. Review once a week

Ten minutes a week is enough: download the transactions from your bank app, paste them in, set the categories, and look at the red cells.

Skip the setup

If you'd rather start budgeting today, a ready-made template has all of this built in: dropdowns, a monthly dashboard, a savings rate and a 12-month annual summary. Upload it to Google Sheets with File → Import.