Free monthly budget table
Every line of income and spending in one table, with money in, money out, what is left and your savings rate worked out as you type. No bank account connected, nothing uploaded.
What each column is for
Seven fields are enough to plan a month. Rename any of them, change the type, or add your own in the Structure tab.
How to use it
The table starts with three example lines so you can see how it fits together. Type over them, then build your month.
What to put in a monthly budget
The lines people forget are the ones that break the plan.
A monthly budget works when it accounts for every pound that arrives, not just the obvious bills. The lines people most often forget are annual renewals, irregular subscriptions and the small daily spending that never feels worth writing down.
A reasonable starting structure:
- Income — salary after tax, freelance or side income, benefits, anything reliable. Leave out money you are not sure about.
- Fixed costs — rent or mortgage, council tax, utilities, insurance, phone, transport season tickets. These barely change month to month.
- Variable costs — groceries, fuel, eating out, clothes. Estimate honestly rather than optimistically.
- Annual costs divided by twelve — car servicing, renewals, birthdays, Christmas. Putting a twelfth aside each month is what stops December wrecking the year.
- Savings — treat it as an expense line, scheduled at the start of the month rather than whatever survives to the end.
How much should be left over?
A common rule of thumb splits take-home pay roughly 50% to needs, 30% to wants and 20% to savings and debt repayment. It is a starting point rather than a law: high rent in a city makes 50% unrealistic, and the ratio matters less than the direction it moves in over a few months. The savings rate figure above the table shows what your plan currently leaves as a percentage of income.
Who this suits
- Anyone budgeting a household month without wanting to connect a bank account to an app.
- Freelancers with uneven income, where money in against money out for a single month beats an annual average.
- Couples splitting costs, using the notes column to record who pays what.
- One-off project budgets such as a wedding, a move or a renovation.
- Anyone who has bounced off budgeting apps and wants a plain table instead.
Want this on your iPhone?
This table lives in one browser. Pocket Tables gives you the same budget, plus any other personal database you want to build, on the phone that is already in your pocket.
- ✓Every column type here, plus photos and links
- ✓Synced across your devices and backed up
- ✓Works offline, no account required
- ✓Build any table you like, not just this one
This budget planner runs entirely in your browser. Rows, categories and totals are held in this device’s local storage, so no bank account is connected, nothing is uploaded and no account is created. Clearing your browsing data, or opening the page on another device or browser, gives you a fresh table — export to JSON first if you want to carry your work across.
Common questions
Is this budget planner free?
Yes. No signup, no trial and no limit on the number of lines. It is a free browser tool from the team behind the Pocket Tables iPhone app.
Where is my budget data stored?
In your browser’s local storage on this device only. Nothing is sent to a server and no bank account is connected. Clearing your browsing data, or opening the page on another device, gives you a fresh table.
How are money in, money out and left over calculated?
Every row with Type set to Income is added to money in, and everything else is added to money out. Left over is the difference, and the savings rate is what is left as a percentage of income. All four update as you type.
Can I change the categories?
Yes. Open the Structure tab, find the Category column and edit its options list, which is just comma separated text. You can also add columns of your own, such as an account name or a person the cost belongs to.
Can I open my budget in Excel or Google Sheets?
Yes. Choose CSV to download a file that opens directly in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. JSON export keeps the column structure as well as the numbers.
Does it handle more than one currency?
Amounts are plain numbers with no currency attached, so the table works with any single currency. For two currencies in one budget, add a Currency column in the Structure tab and convert before you total.
Related tools
More free tables from the same set, all saved in your browser.