Couples Budget Planner spreadsheet for Google Sheets and Excel

Last updated: 26 October 2026

One budget for the two of you. Write every money move once and say who paid and whether it's shared or personal. The Settle Up tab tells you who owes whom this month and for the whole year: split 50/50, by income, or with your own percentage. In Google Sheets or Excel, in a light or a dark theme. Pick the year in one cell: it works for 2027 and for the years after.

The Couples Budget Planner is coming soon to our Etsy shop as an instant digital download. This page will link to the listing as soon as it is live.

What it does

One list of transactions, eleven tabs, nothing to set up.

• Start Here: your two names, each take-home pay per month, how you split shared costs (50/50, By income or Custom) and your household pay schedule, with a 7-step guide.
• Transactions: one list for income, bills, spending, savings and debt payments, 2,000 rows ready. Paid by: one of your names, or leave it blank for your joint account. Shared / Personal: blank means shared. A Check column tells you when something is off, like a name that isn't on the list or a personal cost with no name.
• Settle Up: for the month you pick and for the year so far, each person's income, the shared costs each of you paid, each fair share and personal spending, then one line: "Alex pays Sam 578.36" or "You are even." Costs paid from the joint account are already shared, so nobody owes for them.
• Settle-up payments: log what one of you paid the other back (24 rows), and the year balance shows only what's still open.
• Categories: 24 starter categories you can rename, up to 60. Give each one a type (income, bill, expense, savings) and a monthly budget; bills also get a due day.
• Monthly, Annual and Dashboard for the household: budget against actual for any month, every category month by month, and your year at a glance.
• Paycheck Budget: every household paycheck of the year (weekly, every 2 weeks, twice a month or monthly) with the bills due before the next one, savings, debt payments and a running balance. How it works, with an example: How to budget by paycheck.
• Sinking Funds (20) and Savings Goals (10): a goal and a due date, and the file tells you how much to set aside per month and per paycheck. Example: Sinking funds for irregular bills.
• Debt Payoff: up to 15 debts, snowball and avalanche side by side, with months to debt-free, total interest and when each debt is paid off. Example: Debt snowball vs avalanche.

How Settle Up works, with the example

The example file is a made-up couple, Sam and Alex, with three months of transactions, splitting shared costs by income. Here is January.

1. The split. Sam takes home 3,033 a month and Alex 2,275, so By income gives Sam 57.1% of shared costs and Alex 42.9% (3,033 ÷ 5,308).
2. What each of you paid. In January Sam paid 2,256 of shared costs (rent, some groceries, car insurance, internet and more), Alex paid 680, and 1,512 went out of the joint account.
3. The fair share. The joint account's 1,512 is already shared, so only the 2,936 the two of you paid yourselves is split: Sam's fair share is 1,677.64, Alex's 1,258.36.
4. The result. Sam paid 578.36 more than the fair share, so Settle Up says "Alex pays Sam 578.36". Personal costs (Sam's retirement transfer, Alex's clothes) stay out of the sum.

For the year so far (January to March), Sam is ahead by 1,763.95. Alex paid back 578.36 on 1 February and 578.65 on 1 March, logged in Settle-up payments, so the year block says "Alex pays Sam 606.94": exactly March's balance, not settled yet. Settle up every month, or let it run and settle once: the year block keeps count either way.

Change the split rule on Start Here and every number follows. The three rules side by side on the same January, and where a joint account fits: How to split expenses fairly as a couple.

Made to be easy

• Two themes in the box: a light one and a dark one (charcoal and mint). Same tabs, same formulas.
• A 7-step guide on the first tab, so you don't need a video to get started.
• Nothing is locked. Yellow cells (amber in the Dark file) are for numbers, dates and choices, white cells (dark in the Dark file) for names and notes; gray cells (lighter gray in the Dark file) calculate for you. No passwords and no protected sheets; if you break a gray cell, Ctrl+Z.
• The same file in Excel and Google Sheets. It only uses functions both programs share, so nothing shows #NAME? after import. No macros, no add-ons, no account with us, no bank connection: your numbers stay in your file.
• Any currency. Amounts are plain numbers. Set up to print on Letter and A4.

What it doesn't do

• No bank import: you type or paste your transactions.
• One pay schedule for the Paycheck Budget: if you're paid on different days, use the main one (income received still counts both of you).
• A personal cost belongs to the person who paid it: there's no "paid for" column. Paid for your partner's personal thing? Mark it shared and add a note, or settle it with a settle-up payment.
• No charts: the bars are made of text, so they look the same in Excel and Google Sheets.
• This is a calculation template, not financial advice. The Settle Up figure is arithmetic with the rule you pick, not advice on how to split. Debt-free dates are estimates with fixed rates.

Works in

• Microsoft Excel 2010 or newer (Windows and Mac)
• Google Sheets (File → Import → Upload)
• LibreOffice Calc

What you get

• Couples-Budget-Planner-Light.xlsx: blank, light theme, with starter categories.
• Couples-Budget-Planner-Dark.xlsx: blank, dark theme.
• Couples-Budget-Planner-EXAMPLE.xlsx: a made-up couple with three months of transactions, split by income, so you can see every tab in use.
• How-to-use.pdf: one page on opening the files in Excel, copying them to Google Sheets and reaching us.

Questions and answers

Do we need Excel?

No. The same file works in Google Sheets, which is free with a Google account, and in LibreOffice Calc. In Google Sheets you can both open the same copy.

We have a joint account and our own accounts. Does that work?

Yes. Leave Paid by blank (or pick Joint) for anything paid from the joint account: it's already shared, so it never makes one of you owe the other. Pick a name for what one of you paid from your own account.

Which split should we pick?

That's your call; the file does the arithmetic for each one. 50/50 splits every shared cost in half, By income splits it by your take-home pay, and Custom uses the percentage you type. You can change it any time. The three rules worked out on one month: How to split expenses fairly as a couple.

Is it only for 2027?

No. There is no year inside the formulas. Change the Budget year and your first payday on Start Here and every tab follows.

Just budgeting for one?

Our Budget Planner, also coming soon, has the same tabs without Paid by and Settle Up.

How was it made?

Designed and built by Quicksloth. We used AI tools to help write the formulas, the code that generates the files and these texts; every formula is then recalculated and checked automatically, including the three split rules and settle-up balances worked out by hand. The names and numbers in the example are made up.

Help

Bought it on Etsy? Send us a message on Etsy from your order and tell us which file you have, whether you use Excel or Google Sheets, and what you see. More in Help, the license and your data.