Ultimate Home Expense Calculator Spreadsheet Template for Google Sheets & Excel

The house itself and what it costs to hold: value, floor area, purchase date and gross household income, then the fixed monthly costs. From those it reports the monthly and annual totals, the cost per square foot and housing as a share of income. Cost per square foot is the figure that makes two houses comparable when nothing else does. A larger house at a lower rate per foot and a smaller one at a higher rate can arrive at the same monthly cost by different routes, and knowing which you have tells you where the number will go if you move. The income share is reported as a ratio rather than measured against a threshold. What proportion is workable depends on the rest of a household's commitments, and the sheet takes no position on it.

Named categories across twelve months, filled in with what actually left the account rather than what was planned. Totals run along each row and down each column. The columns are where seasonality shows. Heating, cooling, grounds and water rarely spread evenly across a year, and an annual estimate divided by twelve describes no month that ever happened. Reading down a column tells you which months are the expensive ones - and that is the difference between a budget that survives February and one that does not.

A row per repair or upkeep job, each with a date, what was done, a category, the cost, who did it and how urgent it was, plus a note. The vendor column earns its place over years rather than months. The person who serviced the boiler two winters ago is exactly who you want when it fails again, and that name tends to be in an email nobody can find. The urgency column separates the work you chose from the work that chose you, which is the split that tells you whether the reserve is sized right.

Each category with what you planned beside what you spent, the variance in money and as a percentage. The actual figures read from the Monthly Tracking sheet, so the comparison follows the record rather than being maintained twice. Percentage variance is what stops the largest lines dominating. A mortgage that came in exactly as planned and a maintenance line that ran to double its budget are different kinds of miss, and the money column alone would rank them the wrong way round.

A starting balance, a monthly contribution and a projection running twenty-four months, with contributions going in, withdrawals coming out and the balance carried across. What it answers is whether the fund can absorb the next thing rather than the last one. A reserve is only meaningful against timing - a balance that looks healthy in month three is a different proposition if the projection shows two known jobs landing in month eight.

Six figures and two charts. The monthly and annual cost, the cost per square foot, the maintenance reserve balance, housing as a share of income, and what has been spent so far this year. Setting the year-to-date figure against the annual estimate is the check that matters most. An estimate made in January and an actual read in August are the two halves of the same question, and the gap between them is the only honest measure of how good the estimate was.