The Only Budget Tracker You Need For 2023 [Free Download]

Mums if you aren’t tracking your expenses, debt, and savings, you need to. This is the easiest thing to do and will help you significantly on your journey to financial freedom and independence.

Which is why we created a FREE printable monthly budget tracker for the mumbox community!

Tap the button below to download your copy then scroll down for tips on how to use this binder.

2023 Mumbox Budget Tracker (568 downloads )

 

1.) First, print out all pages of the budget binder so that you’re ready to go! You can download it by tapping the download button above and print it straight away.

2.) Create or buy monthly and general dividers for your binder. We suggest the general dividers in these categories:

• Monthly Expenses (this is where you put all of the monthly dividers January-December)
• Yearly Expenses
• Debt
• Goals

Monthly Budget Tracker Summary Page (Free Printable)

The first (and main) page is where you will log the summary totals of each individual category for the entire month. Think of this as your “summary of the month” page. These are the expenses that most of us purchase each month.

How to fill out the Monthly Budget Tracker Page:

1.) At the top, in the empty box, input the month.

2.) Next, enter your goals for expenses, savings, and debt.

3.) Enter your budgets in all categories.

4.) At the end of each month, you will add up all the expenses from your spending logs (in the next pages) and put the totals onto this page.

Example:

At the end of the month, add up all the totals from every spending log within each category. Let’s say it’s the month of January and you spent R1500 on groceries.

1.) Go to the Groceries spending log

2.) Add up the total expenses in Groceries (R1500 total)

3.) Write R1500 under the Actual tab for Groceries in the Summary Monthly Budget Tracker below.

Spending Log 

The spending logs are where you will spend most of your time and where you will log each individual expense under the corresponding category.

This will help you to see patterns and trends in your spending.

This general spending log is for those who want to track all expenses in one place and who are fine with categorizing.

You can choose to track all expenses on this general spending log, or use the category pages in the next section.

How to Fill Out the General Spending Log:

Write in every expense you make. (Yes, every single one. This won’t work if you are not being honest with yourself and tracking every single expense. The coffee counts!)

Write in the corresponding expense category. Write in the amount.

Example:

If you buy a R100 lunch on Uber on 20.1.23, this is how you would enter the expense on the general spending log.

1.) Write the date (20.1.23)

2.) Write “Uber Lunch” under Expense

3.) Write “Food” under Category

4.) Write R100 under Amount

Category Spending Logs 

In addition to the General Spending Log above, for the mums that want to divide their expenses into categories for easy summarizing, there is also a category page for spending. These would replace the General Spending Log we just discussed above.

Here are the Category Spending Logs and the associated expenses to add to those logs:

• Housing Expenses Log. These are things like rent, electricity, gas, etc.
• Car Expenses Log. This would include car payments, petrol, repairs/maintenance, etc.
• Other Monthly Expenses Log. Examples: cell phone, gym, TV, and other necessities.
• Food/Alcohol Expenses Log. Include groceries and eating out expenses.
• Extras Expenses Log. This category includes makeup, cleaning products for the house, hair cuts, toilet paper, paper towels, etc.
• All the Fun Expenses Log. This name says it all. This is the category you will log getting your nails done, concerts, shopping, vacations and other non-essentials.
• Miscellaneous Expenses Log. This category can be for whatever you’d like.

Feel free to use the category logs or the general spending log with highlights for easy summarizing at the end of the month!

Yearly Budget Tracker Summary Page

This yearly budget tracker page will look similar to the monthly tracker page, except it is a total of the entire year’s expenses.

If you’d like to look for trends and aim to seek improvements in spending, I highly recommend using this page, to sum up your entire year.

This will help you identify where the majority of your expenses are coming from.

How to Fill Out the Yearly Budget Tracker:

1.) At the top of the sheet, in the empty box, input the year.

2.) At the end of the year, add up the expenses from the monthly totals pages to get your totals for the year! That will help you determine where you need to be more cautious when spending and will assist you in coming up with monthly goals going forward.

Savings Tracker

The savings tracker is where you will keep track of how much money you have saved. How to Fill out the Savings Tracker:

1.) In the savings tracker, enter the amount every time you make a deposit into your bank account.

2.) This will tell you how much you have left to your savings goal.

Remember, try to always pay yourself first and use whatever is left over for expenses.

Debt Payment Tracker 

This simple debt tracker page enables you to track the payments you make on your outstanding debt. You can either use this tracker on a monthly basis or you can keep a running log for the year.

This section is left it open so that you can choose whether or not you’d like to track your debt payments on a monthly or yearly log, the line is also left open so that you can either enter the month or the year.

Debt Snowball Tracker

The debt snowball tracker is an effective (and proven) method to track and eliminate your debt.

The purpose of the debt snowball tracker is to keep yourself accountable for paying your minimum payments on each debt while making progress in paying down your debts.

In the snowball method (vs the avalanche method further below), you will pay down your debt from the largest amount to the smallest amount.

How to Use the Debt Snowball Tracker:

1. List your debts from largest to smallest in the tracker.
2. Next, each month, pay the minimum amounts on every debt you have.
3. Any leftover money each month should be assigned to the smallest amount of debt you have. This way, you can attack the easiest debt first and eliminate the number of debts you owe as quickly as possible.
4. Once you pay off the smallest debt, you will take the minimum payment from that debt and apply it to the next debt in line.
5. You will continue doing this until all of your debts are fully paid off.

The idea behind this method is that you will have little wins by eliminating each debt at a time. The debt snowball tracker is an amazing method that truly works and gives us a proven strategy to conquer our debt one step at a time.

Debt Avalanche Tracker

In this method, you will eliminate debt by the highest interest owed to the lowest interest owed. This method will save you the most amount of money in the long run. How to Use the Debt Avalanche Tracker:

1. List your debts from largest % of interest to smallest % of interest in the tracker.
2. Every month, pay the minimum amounts on every debt you have.
3. Any leftover money each month should be assigned to the next debt in line with the highest % of interest. This way, you can attack the most expensive debt first and save the most amount of money.
4. Once you pay off the highest interest debt, you will take the minimum payment from that debt and apply it to the next highest interest debt in line.
5. You will continue doing this until all of your debts are fully paid off.

The idea behind this method is that you will save the most amount of money by reducing your high-interest debt first.

Mums if you download this 2023 budget tracker you are taking the first step to financial independence and that is SO EXCITING!!!

You should be SO proud of yourself for taking the initiative and taking control of what you want most in life – feel free to share this post with a friend or family member who might need it too

Comment below to let us know if you will be downloading the tracker x