Adjustable Ratio Budget

Description

Adjustable Ratio Budget Spreadsheet for Google Sheets & Excel — 70/20/10, 60/25/15 or 50/30/20 Budget Planner with Irregular Income Mode

What’s Included (your download)

• Adjustable-Ratio-Budget-System.xlsx — the blank template (5 sheets, ~18 KB)
• Adjustable-Ratio-Budget-System-SAMPLE.xlsx — the same workbook pre-filled with a full fictional year
• Quick-Start-Guide.pdf — 7-page guide (Letter)

Product Details

Overview

The 50/30/20 rule is good advice for a household whose needs fit in half its pay. For everyone else — which, with today’s rents, is most people — it’s a monthly guilt trip with a spreadsheet attached. The Adjustable-Ratio Budget System keeps the good part of ratio budgeting (three honest buckets: Needs, Wants, Savings) and removes the fixed part. You choose the split: start from a preset — 70/20/10 for high-cost lives, 60/25/15 for the middle road, 50/30/20 for the classic — or type any three percentages of your own, like the sample household’s 60/20/20. From then on, every target in the workbook is calculated from YOUR ratio and YOUR pay: per month, and for the whole year.

And because uneven pay breaks ratio budgets first, there’s a built-in Irregular Mode: plan from your lowest typical month (your baseline), hold a stricter lean ratio for thin months, and pre-decide the cuts — the baseline method from our Irregular-Income Budget System, folded into this workbook.

What’s Included

• START HERE — the 10-minute setup, the guided first month, and the colour legend (gold = type here, pale = formula).
• Setup & Ratio — the three preset ratios side by side, your active ratio in gold cells with an automatic “adds up to 100%” check, your take-home pay month by month, and your editable 19-category list in three groups.
• Monthly Plan — one planned amount per category, then what actually happened in each of the 12 months; group subtotals, year totals and monthly averages calculate themselves.
• Ratio Dashboard — type any month number (1–12) and see that month’s target vs actual per group, with actual % of income, differences and plain-English status lines (✓ within target / ⚠ over target / savings on-or-below target) — plus the same table for the whole year, your savings rate, your actual shares, and your best and hardest months for saving.
• Irregular Mode — your last 6 months’ pay, lowest/average month calculated for you, a baseline cell, a lean-ratio set with its own 100% check, normal-vs-lean target tables side by side, the exact “wants cut” a lean month asks for, a pre-written lean-month actions list whose total is checked against that cut, and the fat-month rule.
• SAMPLE workbook — a complete fictional year (a couple on one salary plus freelance income, $5,310–$6,120/month) with every summary populated, exactly as yours will be.
• 7-page Quick-Start Guide (PDF) — setup, choosing your ratio honestly, the monthly 2-minute routine, a guided first month, the worked SAMPLE example, Irregular Mode, troubleshooting and compatibility.

Key Benefits

• A split that fits your life — no more “failing” a budget that was never sized for your rent.
• Custom means custom — any three percentages, changed any time; every target in the file updates instantly.
• Monthly AND annual truth — spot a drifting month early, and see the whole year’s real ratio (your actual shares) at a glance.
• Built for uneven pay too — baseline planning and a lean ratio are inside, not a second purchase.
• Light and fast — the template is about 18 KB, five sheets, standard formulas only. It opens instantly and stays quick in December.
• Honest preview — the SAMPLE is a real finished year, warts and all (a July travel blowout, a squeezed December). What you see is precisely what you get.

Who Is This For?

• Renters and families whose needs honestly take 55–75% of take-home pay, for whom 50/30/20 was never going to work.
• Couples combining a salary with freelance, commission or seasonal income.
• Anyone who likes the idea of ratio budgeting but needs the numbers to be theirs.
• Gig, tipped and variable earners who want ratio clarity with a lean-month plan (for the full variable-income system — payday splitting, tax jar — see our Irregular-Income Budget System).

How It Works

1. Download and make your own copy (Google Sheets: File → Make a copy; Excel: Save As).
2. On Setup & Ratio: pick a preset as a starting point, type your percentages, your monthly take-home, and rename categories to your words (~10 minutes).
3. On the Monthly Plan, set one planned amount per category. As each month ends, type what you actually spent in that month’s column.
4. Open the Ratio Dashboard, type a month number, read your targets vs actuals. Once a quarter, compare your actual shares with your typed ratio — and nudge the dial if life has moved.

Why It’s Different

Most ratio spreadsheets are one famous split typed into a grid: the moment your life doesn’t match 50/30/20, the file has nothing to say to you. This system treats the ratio as a dial you own — presets to start, fully custom percentages after that — and it closes the loop with actuals: the Dashboard compares what you planned to earn/save/spend against what happened, per month and per year, with status messages in plain English. It also includes the thing no preset template offers: a baseline-based Irregular Mode for the months when pay lands unevenly, using the same lowest-month method as our dedicated Irregular-Income Budget System. And like every Everyday Systems workbook, a filled SAMPLE shows the finished state before you type a single number.

Delivery & Compatibility

Instant download after checkout: the blank workbook, the SAMPLE workbook, and the PDF guide. One file works in Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel — including older Excel (2016 and later). Only standard formulas are used (SUM, IF, INDEX, MATCH, CHOOSE and friends): no macros, no dynamic arrays, no XLOOKUP, nothing to install or enable. Amounts are currency-neutral — switch the number format to £, € or any currency in one step. If the file opens view-only, you opened the original download: make a copy and work in the copy.

Disclaimer

This workbook is an educational budgeting organiser, not financial advice, and it does not promise any particular result. The SAMPLE household is fictional and their figures are illustrative. One purchase covers one household; please don’t redistribute the files. If you get stuck setting up, reply to your purchase email and we’ll help you get it running.