Allocated Spending Plan FAQ

Get the Spreadsheet From Here

First off I would like to thank everyone for the kind words. I’m very happy that you have found my spreadsheet to be helpful on your journey to becoming debt free.

As promised, here is a list of Frequently Asked Questions and my best attempt to answer them.

For questions where the answer is… “NO”,  and where I have no intention to make the requested changes, I have tried to at least give you an explication as to why I have chosen to have things work the way they do.

Q1) I get paid every week and need to be able to account for months that have 5 paydays.

A) I have updated the spreadsheet to now track 5 weeks per month. All you have to do is re download the spreadsheet from the link at the top of the page.

Q2) Is there a column next to each month’s outgoings showing that the item has been paid?

A) No. {Explanation Coming}

Q3) How to I enter cents without rounding to the nearest dollar?

A) This must be a question from a Die Hard Nerd. J I was once like you so don’t be offended. I don’t recommend that you do this for a few reasons.

· Having the cents show in the cells add to the width of the sheet and adds a lot of extra visible ‘Noise’ to the sheet

· Most categories do not need them, for example most people are not going to put down $299.57 for groceries. I know what you are thinking, yea but what about all of those utilities; I don’t set the amount for those. In those instances I just round everything up to the nearest Dollar (Pound, Euro, etc). This just leaves a few extra cents per category in my checking account each payday. It still works out that I have spent everything on paper before the month begins, which is the point of doing the Allocated Spending Plan.

· If you still want to track to the nearest cents you can find out how here from Microsoft.

Q4) Do you know where a good pay down debt excel spreadsheet can be found?

A) Vertex42 has a very good debt snowball spreadsheet that you can download from here.

Q5) Can you add a page that rolls the debt section into the debt snowball?

A) No, because the debt snowball could really be its own spreadsheet. In fact you should download the debt snowball excel file from the question #4. Once you are out of debt, you will no longer need the debt snowball spreadsheet but can continue to use the Allocated Spending Plan spreadsheet. Plus I want to keep this as close to Dave’s paper form as possible.

Q6) Is there a way that we can change the names on the debit section? I would like to make it as personal as possible!

A) You can change the names all you want. All of the calculations are down based on the Cell references (A1, B7, etc). You will need to do it for every tab though. Beware: If you move the rows and columns around thought, you could run the risk of messing up the calculations.

Q7) I am having trouble saving it. It keeps saying its read only.

A) Try going to the File menu and selecting Save As..

Q8) Can you add a column to track actual expenses (vs.. planned).

A) No. For a few reasons… I don’t think of the Allocated Spending plan as a “What we would LIKE to do”, but more of a contact of “This is what we are GOING TO DO”. I will elaborate a bit.

• For categories such as mortgage, utilities, insurance payments and other standard bills, the Allocated amount is always the same as the actual amount.
• For categories where we use envelopes such as groceries, gas, entertainment, etc. When the envelopes are empty, we ‘Stop Spending Money’, again actual = planned. There have been times when we have parked one car for a day or two, while we used the car that ‘Still had gas in the tank’. There were a few paychecks where we did not give ourselves enough food money. There were a couple of days near the end when we were ‘Cleaning’ out the fridge, but we did not cheat. There have been some rare cases when we ran out of money in one envelope and had to borrow from another envelope. In these cases, we would have an emergency budget committee meeting where we were both aware of the borrowing and in agreement. This has improved our communication and helps us plan the next paycheck better, so we don’t have to borrow from other envelopes.
• This leaves us with the only other situation where we have extra money left over (actual was less than planned) in an envelope. I touch on this in the next question.
• Plus I want to keep this as close to Dave’s paper form as possible.

Q9) What do you do with the money left over that you don’t spend from your budget? For example, we didn’t buy clothing last month…and have that budget item left. Does it go to savings, another category if we went over, or carry over to the next month?

A) This is a great question. We have gotten this question in both of the FPU classes we have coordinated. The best way I know how to answer this is to tell you how we have handled this situation, and the answer is… “It Depends!” We will look at the category and talk about why we still have money left. A few examples are….

• If its ‘Clothes’, as in the example, we will just keep the money in the envelope, and still add to it next paycheck. We do this with clothing because in that specific category we tried to figure out how much we were going to spend a year on the family and then divided that number by 26 and putting that number in the clothes envelope. We know that we are not going to buy clothes every paycheck, but when we do, we use only the cash in the envelope and don’t go over.
• If its ‘Gas’ we will talk (there’s that communication again) and try to figure out why we are under and if we need to adjust the amount for the next pay period. Sometimes it’s because my wife did not drive as much (not driving the kids to school during spring break) but will be driving the normal amount in the upcoming paycheck. In that case we keep the budget amount the same and just apply the ‘extra’ amount to the next pay period. Sometimes we are under because the price of gas (or whatever) went down and we can lower the amount we need for the next paycheck. In this case I will lower the budgeted amount and take into account the money left in the envelope that will get used. For example if we need $200 for gas (this $200 represents the new lower amount) and we still have $30 left in the envelope, I will put $170 in the gas column. I just need to make sure I bump that back up to $200 on the next paycheck because that is the amount we are actually spending.

Q10) Where I have always struggled is the best way to record actual monthly expenditures. Do you just replace the budgeted amount with the actual during the month?

A) I only spend the amounts that I put on the spreadsheet. If you stick with what you budget, you will not have to go back and fill in the actual amount. In the event that adjustments are needed, as explained in some of the questions above. I adjust going forward, sometimes using the left over money in the envelopes sometimes bumping up the amounts for a category. By filling out the Allocated Spending plan before each paycheck we are very quickly able to adjust the amount budgeted to closely match what we are actually going to spend.

Q11) When I download the spreadsheet, it will not print. Do you have any suggestions?

A) Try this page.

Q12) Is this just an allocation sheet or is there a place/way to write in the amount you’ve budgeted for AND the amount you actually spend on a particular line item during the month?

A) This is just the Allocation Sheet. See Also Q8 and Q10

Q13) In the 3rd column of your original spreadsheet, it just shows #### in the columns when I enter my numbers. How do I change that?

A) This happens when the values in the cells are wider than the column. Check out this page to see how to adjust the column widths.

Q14) Any chance you can post your sheets for use with Apple Numbers???

A) I’m working on this. I don’t currently have a copy of Numbers but would be happy to put out a Numbers version if someone were to donate a copy of Numbers to me.

Q15) Is there one for the monthly cash flow plan? I can’t find it.

A) No, this is just the Allocated Spending Plan.

Q16) Thanks for your spreadsheet. Does it work in MS 2008 for Mac with the Visual Basic macros disabled (Mac 08 can’t use the Visual Macros)?

A) Yes it does work with MS 2008 for the Mac, but the “Copy from last month” button will not work. You will have to enter each month in by hand.

Tags: Budget