There’s a lot of pressure to spend during the holidays, and it’s easy for that spending to spiral out of control. If you create a holiday budget in Microsoft Excel, you’ll be able to minimize the stress of the holiday season. With an Excel spreadsheet, you’ll be able to track your spending and stay within your budget.

Step One: Create Row Headings

You’ll want to open up a spreadsheet in Excel and create row headings. You’ll want to create headings that cover your standard expenses, and you’ll also want to create headings for your expenses during the holidays. Gifts are likely to be a major expense, and you may have to cover the cost of travel as well.

You’ll want to build headings for every major expense category. You’ll want to make sure you look at how your money is going to be spent during the holidays.

Step Two: Create Categories

Once you’ve entered in your headings, you’ll want to move over to row B3 and add some categories under these expenses. For example, you might want to give each person that’s on your shopping list their own category. You’ll also want to create categories for specific expenses, such as your mortgage payment.

Organizing your expenses under both headings and categories will make it much easier to track how all of your money is being spent. You’ll want to look at where every last dollar is going if you want to maximize your money during the holidays.

Step Three: Create Headings For Pay Periods

Normally, when creating a budget spreadsheet, you would want to create a heading for each month. However, because a lot of people don’t start their holiday shopping until November, you’ll find that it’s easier to see the money that you have coming in if you create headings for each pay period.

Track every paycheck that you have coming in between now and the days when you’ll be completing the last of your holiday shopping. You can make sure you spend every paycheck wisely.

Step Four: Enter Figures In The Appropriate Cells

Once you’ve built the bones of your spreadsheet, you’ll want to add figures to the right cells. There are many cells that you’ll be able to fill in right away. For example, it’s likely that you already know what your mortgage payment is going to be.

When you’ve tracked all of your expenses for a pay period, you’ll be able to see how much money you have leftover. This will allow you to calculate how much you can spend on gifts, food, travel, and other holiday expenses.

A lot of people put themselves into debt during the holidays. Holiday spending could put you in a financial situation that it’s hard to get out of. However, if you create a holiday budget in Microsoft Excel, it will be easier for you to plan how you’re going to spend your money. You’ll easily be able to organize all of your expenses and see how much you can afford to spend.