Budgeting & Debt Elimination

I taught combined Priesthood and Relief Society a week ago on budgeting and debt elimination. I've had a number of requests for my budget template and debt elimination calculator. So I decided to put all of the materials here.

Here are the two handouts that were used in class. I wrote the first one and it goes over the debt elimination process and the steps for starting a budget. The second one is the pamphlet put out by the Church, One for the Money, talking about family finances.

(Click on the images to download)

Here is the debt elimination calculator I created. It has the capacity for 10 debts. You fill in the blue information for each debt in the order you want to prioritize them, along with the amount you can allot toward paying off your debts each month. It then calculates when you will pay off each, how much interest you will pay on each, and the payments that are required each month.

(Click on the image to download)

And finally, here is my budget template. It is the method that I use for budgeting. I've used it for years. Though it has undergone some fairly substantial revisions throughout the process, the principles have remained the same.

(Click on the image to download)

I hope to post some further explanation about how to use the two spreadsheets. I think that the budget spreadsheet especially needs explanation. It is not difficult once you get the idea, but to take advantage of all its coolness a little explanation is necessary. For now, feel free to let me know if you have questions—I'd be happy to explain it to you.

I will update and modify both of the spreadsheets above over time. In fact, both have been modified since I taught the class a week ago. As I revise them I will update these links, so the most up-to-date versions will always be found here. Also, for further updates click on the Budgeting category at the right to see all of my future posts about the topic (this one is the first).

Update: There seems to be some difficulty with the way that some versions of Internet Explorer behave when trying to download the above files. The files are Excel files (they are not zip files). If your computer tries to download it as a zip file then try the following: right click on the link, click Save Target As ..., and name the file <something>.xlsx somewhere you'll be able to find it. That should bypass the problem. As always, if you have trouble then let me know.