# Personal Budget Excel Sheet from Scratch: Personal Finance, Money, Accounting & Productivity - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/personal-budget-excel-sheet-from-scratch-personal-finance-money-accounting-and-productivity/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Personal Development · Quick win · Rated 5 /10 # Personal Budget Excel Sheet from Scratch: Personal Finance, Money, Accounting & Productivity Updated September 2026 Cal Hyslop MBA, University Instructor · Be Free to Do the Work You Want Beginner · 36 min A 36-minute walkthrough of building one Excel budget spreadsheet by hand, formulas and all. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fpersonal-budget-excel-sheet-from-scratch-personal-finance-money-accounting-and-productivity%2F752232748) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. This course promises a personal budget and delivers exactly that: one Excel workbook, built cell by cell, from a blank sheet to a working summary. It is not a course about budgeting philosophy or money management strategy, despite the opening minutes spent defining what a budget is. It is a screen-recorded, follow-along tutorial in basic spreadsheet construction, and it should be judged on those terms. ## What actually gets built The five lessons move in a straight line. After a short framing on why budgeting matters, the instructor opens Excel and sets up an income section with four columns: line item, budget, actual, and difference. Income sources include wages, interest, dividends, gifts, and reimbursements, each budgeted and tracked with a subtraction formula. The expense side follows the same four-column pattern across separate categories, home, transportation, health, and a catch-all "other," each color-coded and totaled with AUTOSUM. The final lesson pulls everything together into a one-page summary that nets total income against total expenses, and closes by plugging in test numbers to confirm every formula points where it should. The most transferable habit taught here is the copy-paste-and-relabel technique: once one expense category block is built and formatted, the instructor copies it wholesale, clears the contents, and renames it for the next category rather than rebuilding formatting from scratch. That single move is worth more than most of the individual formula demonstrations, since it is the kind of practical shortcut a true beginner would not think to use on their own. ## Where it holds up and where it thins out For someone who has genuinely never opened a formula bar, the pacing is patient almost to a fault. Every click is narrated: which cell to select, which menu to open, which color to pick. The accounting number format walkthrough, the fill-handle drag to propagate formulas, and the border and shading choices to visually separate sections are all shown in enough detail that a first-timer could replicate them without getting lost. The ceiling is low, though. The formulas never go beyond addition and subtraction, there is no SUMIF, no conditional formatting tied to overspending, no charts, and no month-over-month tracking across multiple tabs, all things a "personal finance" spreadsheet would typically want. The category lists (mortgage, fuel, health insurance, and so on) are generic placeholders rather than a framework for thinking about what belongs in a budget. And the audio and delivery are noticeably rough in places, with the instructor occasionally correcting mid-sentence or fumbling the click-and-drag explanation, which slows an already slow pace. There is also a structural repetition that a tighter edit would have caught: nearly identical instructions for coloring, bordering, and totaling are repeated for each of the four expense categories, adding runtime without adding new skill. A viewer who grasps the pattern after the first category gains little from watching it three more times. As a first hands-on exposure to building a simple spreadsheet with formulas and formatting, it does its narrow job. As a personal finance tool or an Excel skills course, it stops well short. The standout Copying a fully formatted category block and pasting it as a template for new expense categories is the one workflow shortcut worth adopting on its own. ## What you will learn - · How to structure an income section with budget, actual, and difference columns - · How to build multiple expense categories (home, transportation, health, other) with consistent formatting - · How to write basic subtraction and SUM formulas and drag them down a column - · How to apply cell formatting: currency/accounting number format, fill colors, borders, and font sizing - · How to build a budget summary that nets total income against total expenses - · How to test a finished spreadsheet with sample numbers to confirm the formulas are correct Best for: Complete Excel beginners who want a single working personal budget spreadsheet and are willing to type every step alongside the instructor. Skip it if: Anyone who already knows basic Excel formulas and formatting, or wants budgeting strategy, templates, or advanced functions like SUMIF and pivot tables. Clarity of Instruction Actionable Steps Helpful Examples Engaging Teacher [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fpersonal-budget-excel-sheet-from-scratch-personal-finance-money-accounting-and-productivity%2F752232748)