Circumstance has forced my hand,

To be a cut price person in a low budget land

- from Low Budget, by The Kinks, circa 1979

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same.  I remember when that song came out; we were embroiled in controversy with a Middle Eastern country, faced with odd-and-even days of gasoline rationing and a stagnated economy.  People were embracing Hamburger Helper, and the government was exerting its influence in the private sector.

Times are hard but we’ll all survive,

I just got to learn to economize

I started my adult life in the mid-1980s, and with the freedom came responsibility.  I needed a way to track my expenses, and with my accounting background, I set up my first budget.  It was a primitive affair, in an old journal with lots of columns.  Eventually, I graduated to a computer-based spreadsheet.

Low budget sure keeps me on my toes,

I count every penny and I watch where it goes

I’ve used a weekly budget in an Excel spreadsheet since 1996, the year that I learned Excel.  Prior to that, it was in Lotus 1-2-3.  It’s just a simple tabulation, which lists my expenses by week.  I created it initially to avoid overdraft fees on my checking account.  Back when I started working, I had to watch my weekly cash flow.  Some things haven’t changed much.  I still watch it weekly, but just to stay on top of it.

Each year has it’s own tab, making it easy to compare expenses year-to-year.  To add a year, I just copy the current year’s worksheet.  I can do a pro-forma projection of next year’s expenses by factoring them off of this year’s actual expenses.

You can download a copy of the Excel file by clicking this link: Weekly Budget.xls

The file contains two tabs; a sample with some of the expenses filled in, and a blank tab for 2009.

I hope you find it helpful.  Here are some budget-related links:

Kevin at No Debt Plan talks about free cash flow and your debt,

PaidTwice asks what’s in your emergency fund?

2million is managing his big ticket item spending

Jaimie at Bargaineering wonders if you need an adult allowance.

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