Grab the FREE College Budget Template if you need a simple way to manage your finances!
Learning how to budget properly during college will be of great help once you start your adult life. It will also make your student years a lot easier!
Most of us have a limited budget during college, so it’s really important to delegate every penny. The College Budget Planner lets you monitor your monthly and yearly cash flow, as well as your savings.
🏫 Why This Works
Without financial knowledge, it’s really easy to spend your money on things you want and forget about the living expenses you can’t avoid. Young adults get a wake up call on how expensive everything is when shopping for the College Checklist for their dorms.
Keeping track of your money will help you make sure your bills are always paid on time. You might even want to save for a big purchase, which is totally possible with a bit of savvy budget management.
I wanted to offer a truly useful budget worksheets for teens and young adults which is why you get three different sheets: one is for tracking your monthly budget, another one is to get an annual overview of your cash flow, and a savings tracker that will let you raise the money needed for more expensive items.
Once they feel comfortable and are well on their way with budgeting their bills, they can print off the FREE 9 page Mini Financial Binder which focuses on yearly goals, debt pay off and yearly income tracker.
🎒 How It Works
Anyone can use this 3-page beginner printable budget worksheet for teenagers headed off on their own for the first time. It’s a really valuable tool for any student!
Monthly Budget | Each month, fill in your expenses, income, and debt payments. For non-essential expenses such as entertainment, it’s a good idea to allocate a fixed amount.
Yearly Budget | If you track your finances every month, this sheet will let you draw a line at the end of the year and see how you’re doing money-wise.
Savings Tracker | Whether you need to save for one or several important purchases, this is the sheet you need to reach your goals!
📒 Free Printable College Budget Planner
If this is your first college year, don’t forget to download our [FREE PRINTABLE College Packing Lists]. Once you move in, use these college finance sheets for a stress-free student life and to avoid accumulating student debt.
College Monthly Budget
After so many years of living with your parents, going to college might seem like that moment when you gain financial freedom. No one will look over your shoulder when you spend money.
However, that financial freedom is limited by your monthly income. A part-time job, a scholarship, financial aid……these are all excellent sources of income. You will still need to carefully manage your funds, and a printable monthly budget makes all of that easier.
I didn’t fill any of the categories in the monthly budget because I wanted everyone to be able to fully customize this sheet.
Fixed Expenses
In this section, you will need to fill in all the payments you need to make on a monthly basis. This includes things like:
- Rent
- Tuition
- Insurance
- Medical/dental
- Memberships/subscriptions
Always allocate money for your fixed expenses and other essential categories before anything else. Accumulating debt can be very stressful, but can also be avoided.
Flexible Expenses
These are the monthly charges that fluctuate. If you’re trying to save money, it’s a good idea to analyze them and see if you can reduce or eliminate anything.
- Gas/electricity/water
- Phone/internet
- Food
- Clothing
- Personal care
- Books/school supplies
- Entertainment
- Transportation/Fuel
- Travel
Income
It’s very important you write all sources of income. This will help you understand if you need to find new ways to supplement it or not.
Taking a loan is always an option, but a job (even a part-time one) can also increase your earnings while staying out of debt.
- Job
- From parents
- Scholarships/grants
- Financial aid
- Loans
Debt payments
Having a history of on-time payments will ensure you keep a good credit score in the future. It might not seem so important at such a young age, but trust me, it will!
Be sure to write all your debt payments in the dedicated section of the budget sheet. Then, add them up to see the total and also make a note of the amount remaining.
Next month, subtract the debt payments from the previous month’s remaining amount and watch your debt go down. Very satisfying!
Savings
If you’re trying to set some money aside, this is the area where you can see how you did for the month. Add up your fixed and flexible expenses, calculate your income and debt payments, then use this formula:
SAVINGS = TOTAL INCOME – TOTAL EXPENSES – DEBT PAYMENTS
Even if you’re not saving for a big purchase, having an emergency fund can be life-saving. It’s always a good idea to plan for the unexpected.
There will always be some terrible months with sky-high expenses. It can happen to anyone! Hopefully, you will learn something from these experiences.
It can take a bit of time to figure out how to lower some of your expenses, find alternate sources of income, and stay on top of your debt.
I say it’s totally worth the effort and you can easily keep track of everything using our college budget planning sheets.
College Annual Budget
Time flies when you’re in college and debt can accumulate just as fast. Being financial-savvy is a quality a lot of us wished they had when they were young.
These days we have the infinite wisdom of the Internet at our disposal so you can find and learn anything you set your mind on, personal finance included.
The College Budget Planner includes an annual budget sheet that allows you to get an overview of the entire year. It’s really one of the easiest methods to see how close you are to reaching your financial goals.
For each month, you can write the total income, expenses, and debt payments. At the end of the year, calculate the yearly total for each and use the formula above to find how much money you saved over the year.
Savings Tracker
On a limited budget, setting money aside is challenging. Thanks to planning, it’s actually doable!
Our College Savings Tracker lets you follow up to 4 different savings goals. For each, you can record the purpose of your savings and the needed amount. When you save an extra 10% just color a portion of the jar to visualize your progress.
This is such an easy method to stay motivated and keep increasing your savings!
College Budget Planning Tips & Tricks
Budget planning is not rocket science. In fact, anyone can do it. You simply must be willing to identify and track your earnings and expenses. This is a significant step towards earning your financial wisdom.
The free printable College Budget Planner will make your cash flow monitoring effortless. Such a habit will serve you well throughout your entire life!
Here are some other budget planning tips and tricks that will help you simplify money management even further:
Adjust your budget categories to fit your needs. Saving money is great, but tightening the belt too much can leave you stressed out. Allocate enough cash for your essential categories and if you can underspend, that’s great!
On the other hand, you may need to find ways to lower the costs for some of your expenditures. For example, if your housing costs are through the roof, you may need to find a more affordable alternative.
Learn to separate “needs” from “wants”. We are always tempted to spend more on the latter category and neglect the first one.
Don’t borrow money unless there’s no other option. Of course, this applies to “needs” only. It’s not a good idea to accumulate debt for non-essential things such as entertainment, traveling, going out, gadgets, and so on. Whatever joy you can get from a purchase is not worth the struggle it takes to pay your debt.
Take advantage of student discounts. There are so many places offering them, it’s really worth taking the time to find such deals. On a similar note, coupons and other special offers can help you save even more money.
Use your laptop or tablet in classes, instead of notebooks and other supplies. Having all your classes on a single device is highly convenient and you will end up spending less money on school supplies.
Getting good grades won’t just make you an expert at your future job. It can also earn you various merit-based scholarships. Having additional sources of income during college is always welcome, and it feels amazing when your hard work pays off.
🖨️ How To Grab
Enter your name and email in the form below to get your copy of the FREE Printable College Teen Budget Worksheet.
You will be redirected to a page where you can save it to your computer. Enjoy!
Monthly Calendars
There are monthly calendars to match the College Budget Worksheets.
March Calendar
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