Budget Dashboard Version 1

Background

I left my six-year marriage at the end of February. (Hooray!) I wasn't happy in the relationship, and I came to the realization that I was the victim of financial and verbal abuse. Once I noticed that I was being treated badly, I decided to leave my former partner for good.

After the divorce, I moved to a lovely share house, and started to live a life of my own. I had lived with my parents or friends for years. This is the first time that I will be living by myself with total strangers, and in a foreign country! I know I am old enough to take responsibility for myself, and thought I could start by controlling my budget, or knowing how I spend my money. So I went online, searching for budget planner spreadsheet examples, and made one for myself with Google sheets. 

Features

This is the first version of my budget report. Note that I did not have an income at the time, so it wasn't a budget planner. I did put the SAVING table in it for future use, and hope that I get to start saving for myself as soon as I find ways to increase my income.

• Tables: I made six tables which are OVERVIEW, CASHFLOW, INCOME, BILLS, SAVINGS, and EXPENSES, with tick boxes, drop-downs and formulas and functions like SUM. 
• Bar graph: I wanted to see how I spent my money throughout the month. Unlike the examples I found online that usually put a budget left to spend in this part, or budget versus actual graph, I chose a bar graph instead.
• Donut chart: This is a common feature of most of the budget planners, and I enjoyed working on the color scheme of it. It helped me understand in which category my money goes every month.

Findings

For the first month, I succeeded in keeping my expenses around 50,000 Japanese yen, partly because the real estate agent offered me a discount on the first month's rent. I would like to make some adjustments to the spreadsheet next month, hopefully to get a better insight into my spending.