Planning To Retire Early? A Retirement Budget Worksheet Can Help!

While it certainly sounds great—turning this dream into a reality means wiping out that pesky debt and having enough money to live the life you want to live. Sure, it takes a bit of extra work, but if you carefully manage your finances, make wise investments, and start saving now—there’s no reason it can’t happen.

But where to begin?

Creating a retirement budget worksheet is a great way to get started. This handy retirement tool will not only help get your finances in order in the years leading up to retirement—it’ll keep everything running smoothly and happily ever after. Here’s what a good spreadsheet can do to help you reach early retirement:

Keep your spending under control.
Regardless of when you plan to retire, you need to save money. The biggest enemy to saving is spending, and it’s essential that anyone planning to retire builds a significant savings. Putting together a spreadsheet is a great way to help keep your spending under control. You get a chance to see areas where you might be spending too much money and others where you’re not spending as much as you thought.

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Organize your expenses and income.
Sometimes it feels like our money goes out as fast as it came in. We put it toward bills, savings, food, and other expenses on payday, and then we’re left with a fraction of what we thought we should have. Track your incoming and outgoing expenses with a budget worksheet that can be as broad or specific as you want it to be. Are you looking to see exactly how much you spend on fast food or entertainment? Include a section that tracks spending in these areas every month, year, or however you want to break it down.

Create a long-term plan.
Spreadsheet software is a great way to plan for the now and well in the future. You can build your own sheet that has equations set up to account for spending, saving, and interest that show how your money can grow over the years. There are also templates available that make it easier for you to get the appropriate equations in place without trying to toy around with complicated math. You’ll see how diversifying your money can help to grow your money faster while providing a level of comfort and security.

See where the fun fits in.
The last thing any of us wants is to make life all work and no play. You can make room for your fun more easily by putting it in your budget. You’ll see what you can and can’t afford while working to stay on track for an early retirement. Additionally, you’ll also get a chance to plan the fun you want to have during retirement. Whether you’re planning to spend your free time traveling, perfecting your favorite hobby, or reading on the back patio, you can make room for whatever you plan to do by building your retirement budget on a spreadsheet.

Play with the numbers.
A retirement budget worksheet is an easy way to manage your money on a day-to-day basis. You can input your income and expenses to help see where your money is coming and going in real time. But you can also use your sheet to plan for the future. Play with the numbers to see how things change if you don’t save as much or start to ramp up your savings. A worksheet that’s set up properly with the right equations will make it easy to create financial projections five, 10, and even 20 years down the road.

Outline your retirement.
Anyone who’s contributing to a 401(k) retirement plan can check their balance and projections for how much money they’ll have. You can use this information to estimate how large your monthly dispersals will be. Use a 401(k) calculator if you need to check your work. Create a budget sheet to outline your retirement that includes monthly bills, cost of living, and money for fun. Your outline will give you an idea of the types of things you can afford to do during your retirement. If you don’t have enough set aside to do what you want, a spreadsheet makes it easy to move numbers around to see what you need to do to get there.

It doesn’t matter if you’re planning to retire early or on time—a retirement budget worksheet is a great way to make sure you’re on track to reach your goals. You can build your own worksheet or meet with a retirement expert to get help.