UPDATE: Be sure to stop by this post to see how I've started using my Savings Tracker. I'm illustrating using my own, real-life transactions!
Some of you might have been using the Excel spreadsheet savings tracker I created last year. In order to start the New Year of right, I decided I wanted to make some modifications to this spreadsheet. As some of you know, I used to work as an Administrative Assistant to Senior Management for a local bank, so I got rather handy with Excel. 
With this spreadsheet you'll be able to:
- Easily imput your monthly and yearly goals
- Enter data from your reciepts and let my preset formulas tally your spending, savings, actual-to-budget, and more
- Track and manage your rebates (NEW!)
- Determine how much you saved with coupons, store sales, and rebates
- Have your monthly and year-to-date savings ratio update instantly
I've worked hard to create this spreadsheet and make it as user-friendly as possible. My goal was to have you be able to enter only a few pieces of data from your receipts and let it do all the calculating for you.
To get started, download and save a copy of the spreadsheet to your computer. Then, open the Summary tab. This is where you can get a year-to-date view of your savings. All you need to do on this tab is set up your monthly budget for food and household items – one entry per month. Once you input that information, your monthly tabs will prefill with your goals. At any point, you can visit the Summary tab to keep an eye on the "bigger picture" of your spending and savings.
Each time you shop, come back and fill out the few pieces of information from your receipts onto the appropriate monthly tab. Again, I have formulas preset to keep your stats updated EVERY TIME new information is entered.
A couple last notes about this Savings Tracker. First, while I've worked to make it as user-friendly as possible, please note a basic understanding of Excel is essential. I've included a "Start Here" tab with a few basic instructions, but unfortunately, I can't offer Excel training to everyone. Sorry.
Lastly – and this should be common sense – this spreadsheet is intended for personal use ONLY. Please be considerate of copyright issues. If you are a blogger and wish to direct your readers to my Tracker, you are welcome and encouraged to link to this post. However, I request you not place the Tracker for download directly on your personal blog or website.
I hope this helps some of my nerdy Excel friends! I will be using this spreadsheet myself and will try to show you how I make use of it in the days and weeks ahead to illustrate how it works.
UPDATE: One commentor mentioned that the links weren't working from the Summary Page to the monthly tabs. When I took a look, I reazlied I'd hard entered $150 from Feb – Dec. I have uploaded the corrected versions below. I apologize for this!
Download 2010SavingsTracker (Excel 2007 Version)
Download 2010SavingsTracker2 (Excel1997 – 2003 Version; some formats may vary slightly)
Thoughts? Let me know!
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Thank you everyone for the overwhelming response! I hope that you will continue to follow me. In addition to finding great deals, it’s equally important to me that I share my money-saving adventures with you…that I take the time to share what I learn and encourage you to make a meaningful dent in your budget. If you’re wondering where I’m headed in 2010, I encourage you to read my post here:
http://www.thecouponproject.com/the_coupon_project/2010/01/what-to-expect-from-the-coupon-project-in-2010.html
Again, over the next few days and weeks, I’m going to do my best to illustrate my own personal use of this spreadsheet tool in order to give you some ideas of how it could be used.
Vicki and Angela: If you are opening with Open Office, it’ll open as a Read Only file. All you have to do is save it to your desktop and it will automatically convert to a version that you can edit.
And thanks for the tracker, it looks really helpful! I went out shopping today and just entered my first three stores worth of data. =)
This is going to be so awesome! Thanks!
Thank you Thank you!!!! That’s so great! Saving money is one of my top resolutions for the new year (so I can quit my job!).
Wow, this is amazing! Thanks for sharing it!
This is AWESOME! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
i’m wondering if i’m doing something wrong when i download it. when i do it is all very compact on the page. the words in the tabs across the top are so compressed that the full words do not show up. what could i be doing wrong or how can i fix this? thank you so much
Starr, first, make sure you’re saving a copy directly to your computer. (I trust & hope folks are doing this BEFORE making any additions.) Next, it’s quite possible the spreadsheet needs to be maximized on the page. Make sure to hit the square icon in the upper right-hand corner. HTH.
Sweeeeeeet! I have a spreadsheet I’ve used that is really quite similar to yours, only yours in more advanced! Thank you so much for sharing it.
Awesome! I was just talking with my husband yesterday about tracking how much I save through coupons etc. He mentioned tracking sales vs. shelf price and I said I didn’t want to hassle with that but this will make it easy! I plan to link to this post from my site as well. Great job!
Thanks SO much! I was trying to figure out the best way to track my savings (just started couponing) and found your site from CouponingtoDisney today! Love it!
I was going to create too…..wonderful, thanks for sharing.
I’ve been messing around with this program and when you include tax in your shelf total, it changes the amount paid. I think you should have a tax box to itself and then caculate your tax into your savings percentage. I would change it on mine, but I’m self taught on excel and don’t know how to change a percentage formula.
Does that make sense?
Hmmm, well I think I figured it out! Following a tracker like this would mean no shopping at Wags! That would be so hard to track and remember when I got home!
Christan, I actually DID track my WAGS stuff with a version of this I created in 2009. It worked fine. I am planning a couple trips in the week and will be sure to come back and demonstrate how I’m using it.
It should go without saying, this tool may not be for everyone! If you really aren’t concerned with what you’re saving/spending, or if you have extremely excessive transactions at drugstores, then you might not wish to track. Another suggestion – let’s say you do 4 transactions at Walgreens. It’s possible you could tally your totals and make ONE line entry.
Again, I encourage people to save a copy of this on their computers and feel free to tinker with it and make it your own. I understand everyone has their own shopping preferences.
Be sure to stop by in the next few days and I’ll spend some more time showing you how I’m using mine with real data. Thanks!!
thanks you so mucho this will help me a lot
This is awesome – thank you so much!
Nice Spreadsheet. I am sure a lots of work went into making this. I have a posted this on my free stuff blog http://www.icravefreestuff.com so that others can find it too.
I’m having issues in OpenOffice too. It’s opening as a read only file.
Thanks this is great! I much appreciate the hard work you put into this for us:)
this is great. Now I can show my husband what we are really spending? How do you track RR from Walgreens or ECB from CVS? Thanks
You are THE BEST! I am sooo excited about this! I was wanting to “track” my savings this year and this tool is just what I needed!
God bless you for blessing the rest of us with your knowledge and skills!
I work with a company called Grocery Smarts (I teach couponing classes). This is perfect! I had a good friend send this to me (hope you don’t mind if I blog about you too). I certainly can’t wait to give this a try!!!! Thanks so much
Thanks for sharing this spreadsheet. It is great! I really wanted to track my savings this year. It helps me stay focused and motivated. Thanks again!
This is awesome! I started using it today! Aside from the above question regarding CVS’s ECB’s, I was wondering…do you add your entire purchase or just the items you received deals on. For example, today the only thing I didn’t save money on was a card for my husbands birthday. Do I include that to the total or just those that were on sale, discounted, or coupons were used?
Thank you so much for all of the work you’ve put into this spreadsheet! I’m super excited to start using it
Love it!!! Thanks so much for sharing this! It is a such an inspiration to continue the ‘hunt’ for deals when we can see how much we are really saving. Also, makes me feel like I can see my stay at home mom job/salary is actually quite profitable. I make much more $ for my family with coupons, rebates and sales than any job I could go out and work.
Wow…..that is really a great post, great ideas and great things related to downloads.
Angela I need help…for some reason when I click on the link it downloads but when I try to open it it says not found….what should I be doing differently?
oops! Sorry nevermind….I figured it out. If anyone else is having this problem do “save link as”….and then put it somewhere you can find it. Then go to “open” on your excel and open it from where you put it….don’t know why it wasn’t working…and BTW..Thanks soo much for this…I have a huge spreadsheet for my bills but I was writing my spending on a calendar…This is MUCH better!
Thank you for this! I am trying it out now and think it will be a big help in tracking my spending and savings. One question though, is there supposed to be a separate tab for the “rebate tracker”? I don’t see it on the one I downloaded. Maybe I’m overlooking it? I see Summary, then Jan through Dec tabs, then Sheet1.
Thanks so much!
Tanya, you might have to scroll to the left to see it. There’s a “Getting Started” and “REbate Tracker” tab before Summary.
LOVE IT! I was in the process of creating my own when my sis in law told me about this one. Thanks so much for sharing your hard work. This is awesome! I just finished entering my receipts from this year so far and CANNOT WAIT to see what my savings will be!!
WOW – thanks… I have been meaning to do this for soooo long. I would also love to know how to do dropdowns. I love excel, but recently converted over to Mac – The Mac Office Works – NUMBERS can open excel spreadsheets and you can either save them as NUMBERS files or excel files if you are going back and forth mac to PC.
Definitely going to share this with my readers – AWESOME JOB!!
Thanks so much! This is something I’ve been looking for. I’m going to like to this page on my blog, http://eclypsechicsshoppingadventures.blogspot.com/
- Alicia @ A Shopper’s Savings
What great tips for helping people track their spending in 2010! And thanks for sharing your Excel template!
There are some more great templates — for all Office products — at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/FX100595491033.aspx
Also, if you’re interested in getting tips and tricks about Office products, join the community and conversation at the Office page on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/Office
Happy saving!
Cheers,
Kim
MSFT Office Outreach Team
Thank you!!! I wish WinCo noted on the receipt when things are on sale, so I’m not capturing everything, but it’s still outstanding!
Alissa, I’d love to get a copy of the drop down menu version too if possible. Please email to millerfordfamily at verizon dot net., Thanks so much!
Okay So do you use a calculator and total everything you buy from an albertsons receipt and put it in the shelf price? That is the only way I can think of doing it, but my brain is unable to think at the moments so maybe there is another way.
Thank you so much! Amazing!
Thank you so much for this! I just downloaded the spreadsheet and input my receipts from the first two weeks of Jan. This is way cool!!
I love this thanks. I am just starting to use it. I was wondering if anyone knows how to add in money back. Like the store owed me money for coupons not rung in and I had a 3.50 off entire bill. I put it in by itself in one line. I think that was how I was supposed to do it but not sure. Thanks Mindy
Thank you so much for this.
I’m finally getting around to downloading this and LOVE it – I used a simple savings tracker last year that I tweaked for my own use – but this is AMAZING! I’m going to link over here from my blog!
thanks for sharing this. I have been using it and it helps me keep track of my spending. I just started couponing a couple months ago. I am hoping that your spreadsheet will help me keep balance between getting bargins and “spending too much money to save money”. I need to remember how much I spent…not just how much I saved. Anyway thanks.
Thank you so much for sharing this tool and your knowledge. I have posted a link to your site on my blog for my readers to discover your site!
How do you start a new month like February? Sorry my excel skills are limited and I am loving this spread sheet
Start the tab called “Feb.”
This is awesome! Thank you so much! I found the Start Here and Rebate Tracker tabs that I didn’t see before. Cool.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS! I want to tell the world!! You are soo amazing to put this together!!! My husband wanted to keep track of the grocery store savings for the year and so that is what we are starting with. I might keep a 2nd one for non-grocery stores, but I’m starting with just groceries. When I put in our information it was so fun to see the savings add up!! Definitely makes all the work of clipping and coupon matching worth my time. Thank you SO MUCH for doing this!!!
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