Do you find keeping on top of your finances to be a struggle?
Tracking daily spending, trying to find ways to cut expenses, and making sure bills are paid on time can be a huge strain. Especially if you live paycheck to paycheck.
You may have bought expense tracker apps in the past trying to find ways to manage your money better.
Good news. There is a simple solution that will help you meet all your personal finance needs. Using a Notion budget template will allow you to easily plan a budget. These premade budgeting templates can save you time, money, and stress.
Best Notion Budget Template
The best Notion budget template for you is probably on this list. Whether you’re looking for a simple accounting template just to keep tabs on daily living spending habits or a detailed budget template to cover every single expense, you will find it here.
1. Finance Tracker
The first budgeting template to check out is Finance Tracker. You will see that this template is simple, yet highly effective.
There is ample space to record all expenses and income. You can separate costs into categories including business income, personal costs, daily living expenses, and more.
One of the biggest benefits of using Finance Tracker is that it allows you to see at a glance your spending and saving habits. That way when you are budgeting you can make necessary adjustments should you spot any problematic spending.
2. Personal Finances
Personal Finances is a template organized using a Kanban board with columns. The template is split into 3 sections allowing you to immediately see expenses, debt, and cash flow.
The first section lets you list expenses, savings goals, extra expenses, and spending. If these headers don’t suit you or you need more, then you can make changes.
Every Notion template can be amended to suit your needs. You could add another spending category like daily habit goals, a custom cover image, or another category column of your choosing.
Notion gives users full control over every template you add to your workspace. Managing club projects, a creative team, or your own day-to-day life is much easier thanks to the wealth of options you can choose from.
An integrated cash flow calendar means you can see briefly when every bill is due. You can add any other spending to this calendar as well including when you want to achieve savings goals by.
In the last section you have four boards. When you download Personal Finances, the boards are initially titled Expenses, Debts, Subscriptions, and One-Time. These can be used to list every expense according to title, but you can always amend them if you need to.
3. Budget Planning
Building a detailed budget is much easier when you have a breakdown of your expenses over time. The Budget Planning template is a top tool for monitoring expenses.
A monthly cap can be set for spending. You can add all your expenses in the database template that comes with this budgeting template. Housing costs, entertainment, food, and everything else can all be listed.
Expenses can be viewed in a variety of ways including a calendar view, Kanban-style, or by category. Viewing your expenses using this template gives you a clear picture of the proportion of income that goes towards each expense.
Using that data, you can build a detailed budget that will get you on course to reach your money goals.
4. Personal Budget
Personal Budget is a template designed for anyone wanting to create a detailed budget on Notion.
There is ample room to record all expenses and income. Tags allow you to quickly identity common spending categories such as personal spending, business spending, school fees, and anything else you need.
You can add in your projected spending for each item and in the month column record the actual spend. Tracking spending this way is an excellent idea as you can see when you spend more than expected or less than you thought. That way you can adjust your budget accordingly.
5. Finance & Budgeting
The free Finance & Budgeting template is packed with awesome features allowing users to effortlessly manage every aspect of their finances.
You will find the preset template has room to add recurring payments, subscriptions, a wishlist, and all other expenditure.
6. Subscription Tracker
These days it seems like there is a subscription model for everything. You may already subscribe to various services for music, video games, books, keeping fit, and TV.
Monitoring all these subscriptions is a budget within itself. You could easily have 10, 20, or more subscription fees every month. Tracking subscriptions is also a great way to spot any you no longer need. That way you can cancel them and save yourself some money.
Subscription Tracker is a free Notion budget template created for users to be able to manage subscriptions.
Items you can add include what the subscription is for, a cost column, renewal date, and whether the subscription is active or canceled.
7. Investments Tracker
Budgeting helps you reach your financial goals. If you are trying to build wealth, then part of your budget will include investing.
Investments Tracker is a great template for anyone wanting to keep a close eye on how their investments are performing. Using the data from this tracker you can keep your budget up to date with expected income from investments. You can also see at a glance any investments that are under-performing.
Can You Make a Budget in Notion?
Yes! You can make a budget on Notion. Plus, making a budget on Notion is ridiculously easy!
If you want to make a budget on Notion, simply follow these steps:
- Choose a template you want to use
- Click ‘Duplicate Template’
- The template will be added to your Notion workspace (you will need to log in)
- Customize the template according to your needs
That’s it! In four easy steps you now have your very own budget setup.
Templates for Notion are easy to find. You can click one of the links above for a free budget template. Select duplicate and it will now be available in your Notion workspace.
If you want a template for something else, Notion has got you covered. There are thousands of templates to choose from covering a huge variety of needs. Head to the Notion template gallery to browse other options.
Now that you’ve created your budget, the next step is to make it your own. Notion has lots of fantastic features, one of which is that everything is customizable. You can add cover images, change the text color, and make each block your own. Every header, tags, and column can be reorganized, renamed, or moved according to how you want to work.
How Do You Do Expenses in Notion?
To track expenses in Notion you will need to add an Expense Tracker to your workspace or create your own. Using this premade template allows you to accurately record every expense.
You will see that the template has seven columns that can be used for each transaction. They break down as follows –
- Name – The company the expense relates to
- Date – Transaction date
- Income/Expense – Amount of transaction
- Account – Payment method used for the transaction
- From – Where the transaction took place
- Receipt – Attach a copy of expense receipts
Every template can be customized according to your own needs. You can add or remove columns, rename them, or change the colors.
How Do You Create a Financial Budget?
To create a financial budget that works for you, there are a few steps you should follow.
Gather Up All Financial Statements
The first step you must take before putting together a budget is to get all your financial statements together. Making sure you’ve got every document to hand before you begin means you won’t forget anything.
You may have lots of paper statements, but don’t forget that some are online only. Make sure you download any digital statements as well. Financial statements you might need include:
- Bank statements
- Investment accounts
- Credit card statements
- Utility bills
- Paystubs
- W-2s
- Loan statements
- 1099s
- Recent receipts
- Mortgage statements
Add Up Your Income
Next, add up your total income from all sources. If you are employed and taxes are deducted automatically, your take-home pay will cover this.
Remember to add other forms of income including Social Security and child support.
If you are self-employed, a freelancer, or work a side hustle, then you may earn an irregular income. Look at your earnings for the last year and choose the lowest-earning month as the income you will use for your budget.
Monthly Expenses
Thanks to the help of your financial statements, you should be able to write a list of every expense that you have. The list might include some or all the following:
- Mortgage or rent
- Utilities
- Insurance
- Car loan
- Groceries
- Entertainment
- Savings and investments
- Student loans
- Credit card payments
These are expenses that nearly everyone has, you will probably have more to add. Make sure to look through your statements carefully and record every expense accurately.
You may also want to split your expense list into one column for variable expenses and a separate column for fixed expenses. Variable expenses are items that change amount each month and fixed expenses are items that are the same cost each month.
Add It All Up
Now you’ve listed everything, it’s time to add up your income and expenses. Hopefully the total income exceeds expenses. If it does, that means you have extra money each month. That money could be used to pay off debts faster, build an emergency fund, or to treat yourself.
Alternatively, your total expenses could be higher than your income. Thanks to your detailed budget you should be able to see areas of spending that you can cut. Reducing expenses when possible can help you balance your budget.
Another step to consider is called the 50/30/20 rule. The rule means you spend 50% of your budget on needs (e.g. housing costs), 30% on wants (e.g. eating out), and 20% towards paying off savings and debts.
The percentages in this rule can be changed depending on your current circumstances. For example, if you’re in debt, then you might want to put 30% towards debt until it’s cleared.
Balance The Budget
Your goal now that you’ve done the hard work is to make sure your budget remains balanced. Keep an eye on expenses as it’s important the expense column never exceeds the income column.
The ideal budget will have an income and expense column that totals the same amount.
That means you are covering all your expenses, but also means no income is left unused. Once needs and wants are paid all remaining income should be going into a savings or investments account.
If you are looking for a Notion budget template, then the list above is a great place to get started. Click on a link above now to check out a template.
All the Notion templates in this guide are free to download. Not only can you use the power of Notion to organize your daily life, but you can use it to budget better too.