Having an intuitive, color-coded, easy-to-use budget makes financial management much easier, and brings more joy to a sometimes less-than-exciting task. Instead of wasting time finding a budgeting tool that works, this takes brief one-time setup, and is free and effective!

As a side note, I’ve always loved the Google platform for its ease of cross-platform use and auto-save, including Docs, Calendar, Gmail, YouTube Premium, and now the Google Tasks app, which I recently discovered and found perfect for the way my brain thinks. I also love Gemini much more than ChatGPT in terms of the quality of responses.

(While I love my MacBook Air and iPhone, and appreciate Apple’s superior hardware build quality, I think their proprietary software with the exception of GarageBand, and especially “closed” off ecosystem is a big turnoff. I also think their accessories including the Apple Watch, AirPods, etc, are far overpriced and inferior to similarly priced Garmin and Bose products for smartwatches and headphones).

My wife and I tried this tracking a year ago in the beginning of 2025, and it was a total game changer for knowing where we were at for each charge and category entered, and I could make notes for each income or expense transaction. When life is expensive, and income is variable, having structure definitely provides some peace of mind.

However, we made updated categories for this year that better reflected the categories, which are totally customizable. As the video below shows how to set everything up, there are separate Google Forms for Income and Expenses that are linked to the sheet. So a new “form” is submitted for each transaction that gets reflected in the sheet. Although it is a bit of a hassle to set up, as it takes maybe 30-45 minutes, once it’s done, it can be used year after year. I also use other tabs in this Google Sheet workbook to include a detailed credit card and student debt overview, and another to track earnings and mileage doing my Amazon Flex side hustle.

Anyways, budget template credit is due to Deborah Ho. If this interests you, check out her instructional video: www.youtube.com/watch