Excel workbook
Holiday and Gift Budget Tracker: Know the Total Before You Spend It
Set the total first, track every gift, and see what is left before the holiday arrives.
$14 one time · example and blank copies · download link by email
Who it is for
Households planning gifts, travel, food and events for the holidays who want to stay on a number.
Why it is different
- It starts from the total you choose and shows what remains, not just a list of gifts.
- Ship-by dates flag anything that will arrive late.
- A filled example with invented people and a blank copy with all formulas working.
What is inside
- Start Here. How to use it and which cells to fill in.
- Setup. Your total budget, the holiday date, money set aside each month and a cap for each category.
- Gift List. Up to 60 people with a budget, planned and actual cost, bought and shipped status and ship-by date, with an over-budget flag.
- Other Spending. Travel, food, decorations, cards, events and charity, planned against actual.
- Dashboard. Budget, planned, actual and remaining, a category chart, gifts still to buy and days until the holiday.
- Shopping by Store. Totals by where you bought, with a chart.
- Payoff Plan. An estimate of months and interest if part of the spending goes on a card.
- Last Year vs This Year. Compare category totals with last year.
- Checks. Flags missing budgets, late ship-by dates and amounts that do not make sense.
A look inside
Example data, real formulas
Get it
Holiday and Gift Budget Tracker
Want every toolkit? The toolkit membership includes all of them, with a lower rate if you pay yearly.
Delivered as a zip of editable Word files and printable PDFs. For one business, your own use. General information and templates, not legal, tax or accounting advice. A planning aid that works from the figures you enter. The card payoff is a simple fixed-rate estimate, not your statement, and has no built-in interest rate. Not financial advice. Tested by recalculation and by checking sample figures; not opened in every version of Excel. Payment is handled by Stripe. If a file will not open or something looks wrong, reply to your order email and we will make it right.
Free starter
Try a free one-tab version first
A small working Excel file with the same kind of math, filled with made-up example numbers you can type over. We send one confirmation email, and no series follows.
Rather hand it off?
We can keep the books for you each month
If tracking this yourself is more than you want to take on, we do monthly bookkeeping in QuickBooks, Xero or Excel. Tell us what you use and what is behind, and we reply with a written quote after a short review of your books. No obligation.
Get a bookkeeping quote Free books health checkPrefer to keep it yourself but want a hand getting started? Book a 45 minute setup session ($65).
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