When starting to get your finances in check, everyone will tell you to create a budget. Budgets are key to tracking your spending. Included in your budget, should be a category for savings. However, if you do not track your savings any other way, it is easy to lose sight of your savings goals!
Tracking savings allows you to see financial improvement; to see how successful your budgeting actually is!
Savings Tracker
I have created a separate worksheet just for savings within my budget spreadsheet. Savings and spending go hand-in-hand, so it really is important to keep these together.
My monthly budget & savings worksheet can be downloaded here: http://www.27andfrugal.com/files/easy_peasy_2010_budget.xls
If you already have a budget that works for you, simply copy/paste the Savings worksheet and use it on it’s own.
Ideally, the worksheet should mimic your savings account, so start with your beginning of the year balance. This sheet will be filled in automatically once you input your savings into the monthly budget sheets. Or simply manually enter in how much you are transferring to savings each month.
The interest does need to be entered manually from your monthly bank statement. Seeing exactly how much or how little interest you are earning every month may make you want to look into alternative saving account options.
The box on the right is the most important part of the whole sheet… your goal! Do everything you can to keep this goal in the back of your mind each time you make a purchase. When you are over 50% of the way to your goal, you will have incentive to put more into your savings every month. Continue reading »