By Kieran, Slate & Serif
A page headed "Budget" can still leave you doing all the budgeting somewhere else. If you add up every row yourself, keep the planned figures in a separate file and try to remember which bills haven't happened yet, the page is mostly holding your handwriting.
For a monthly budget beside your plans, with the arithmetic done from the figures you enter, I'd recommend our planner, Slate & Serif. Its Monthly Finance page separates budgeted amounts from actual figures. It covers an opening balance, income, bills, savings and debt, alongside expense categories whose actual totals come from the Expense Tracker.
Two headline figures, two different questions
Left to budget starts with the opening balance and budgeted income, then subtracts the other amounts you've budgeted. It answers a planning question: how much remains after the allocations you've entered?
Left to spend uses the actual figures. It answers a different question: what's left according to the amounts recorded so far? A bill you've planned but haven't recorded as paid can still be ahead of you.
Monthly Finance headline totals and bills. The electricity bill has no actual recorded yet. Fictional figures from our Help guide.
Reading the example month
The illustration starts with an opening balance of 1,200 and income of 4,200, so 5,400 in all. The plan allocates 1,765 to bills, 770 to expenses and 300 to savings. That leaves 2,565 to budget.
The actual column tells a different story so far. Rent (1,600) and the phone bill (45) have been paid, so bills are at 1,645. Expenses show 251, made up of 178.55 on groceries, 30 on transport and 42.50 eating out. Savings are at 150. That's why left to spend shows 3,354. The headline figures are rounded for display.
In this example, the gap of about 789 comes from planned amounts that haven't yet been recorded as spent or saved:
- Expenses are at 251 of a planned 770, so about 519 is still planned.
- Savings are at 150 of 300, so 150 is still planned.
- The electricity bill, budgeted at 120 and due on the 28th, has no actual entry yet. In this example it is still to come; in your own record, check whether a blank means unpaid or simply not entered.
So 3,354 describes the recorded figures today. It doesn't reserve money for a cost you haven't entered. The useful habit is to read left to spend alongside the rows still waiting for an actual figure.
Log the spending where the totals can use it
From Monthly Finance, open Go to Expense Tracker. Record a date, category, description and amount for each expense. The monthly expense actuals add up from those entries.
That lets the monthly page show the difference between what you planned for groceries and what you've recorded spending on them. You can check the transactions behind a total instead of trying to remember what a rewritten figure included.
A ten-minute weekly money check
Once a week, with a cup of something:
- Add the week's expenses in the Expense Tracker.
- Back in Monthly Finance, compare each category's budget with its actual. Groceries running ahead in week two is worth knowing in week two.
- Look for bills with a budget and no actual entry. Check whether they're still ahead or have been paid but not recorded.
- Read left to spend with those bills in mind before deciding on anything optional.
If you already use the Weekly Review, this fits beside it.
Does it connect to my bank?
No. Slate & Serif is a manual-entry planner with calculation tools, not a verified view of your accounts. Missing transactions, unrecorded bills and wrong entries will leave the record incomplete, and the planner can't repair that for you.
The currency setting changes how amounts are displayed. It doesn't convert between currencies, so enter everything in one currency.
Keep the costs near the plans that create them
A trip has a departure date, booking details and costs. Slate & Serif gives those a dated event, a project or notebook page, and a place in the month's finances, so the money and the plan stay in the same planner.
Both Core and Premium include the finance tools; Premium adds the wider personal styling.
Try it with fictional numbers first
Open the Premium sample on a laptop or desktop and build a small made-up month: an opening balance, two bills and a few expenses. Leave one bill without an actual and watch how the two headline figures differ. No account or card is needed, and the sample resets after its displayed 24-hour period.
Add Slate & Serif as a preferred source on Google. It's a personal setting that only affects what Google shows you.