Problem

Have you run into the problem of creating a wonderful budget in Excel or some other spreadsheet software but struggled to refer to it, because it was only on one computer at home? If you’re like us, my wife tends to take care of most of the day-to-day budgeting, and by most I mean all. This means that I’m not always as aware of how much is actually left in a given category, so I call my wife to check.

Solution

My friend Troy and his wife downloaded our quarterly budget template and have been using and customizing it. One of their most ingenious steps was to upload it to Google Docs. That way either one of them can refer to it when they need to. For me, that would mean I could check it before running over to the hardware store at lunch, without having to call my wife to see if we have enough in the budget, which she may not know without looking.

However, I’m still big on communication. I will probably still call my wife, but it’s just to communicate the plans and make sure she didn’t have other more important plans with the money. But I’m able to look for myself and not put the burden on her to always know or have to go check.

Also, Troy likes that both he and his wife can be in different places, like one at home and one at the office and both access the spreadsheet at the same time. They can talk on the phone and Google Docs highlights the cell they each have selected with different colors, so it’s easy to follow each other in a discussion about it.

Document

Quarterly Budget Template (Google Docs)

You will need a Google account such as your Gmail account to access the Google Docs version of the quarterly template. Click the Use this template button. Clicking this button does two things:

1. The spreadsheet will be added to your personal list of documents (what you see when you first open Google Docs).
2. Your personal version automatically opens, and you can begin working on it.

In order for your spouse to view the document, you need to send them an invite. Either from the budget spreadsheet page or from your list of documents with the desired document selected, click the Share button and select Invite people…. A dialogue box will open where you can enter the email address of the person(s) you want to invite. You can select whether that person can edit or only view the document.

If you already have a budget in a spreadsheet and don’t want to start from scratch, you can import it into Google Docs either by using the Upload button from the Google Docs home or by opening a new Google Docs spreadsheet, clicking File, and then Import….

Spreadsheet Sharing Video Tutorial

And don’t forget, you can bookmark the spreadsheet in your browser for quick easy access.

That’s it. Now you can work together and be a team.

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