Budget My £3,000 Salary With Me - May 2026 | Full Budget Tutorial 📈, by Lewis Donnovan on YouTube. 33 min 17 s.
- Video length
- 33 min 17 s
- Time to do it
- 30 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Steps
- 9
What you need
Steps
Open a blank spreadsheet and name the first tab after the month. In column A write the labels Income, Bills, Spending, Savings and Investing, leaving a few blank rows between each one.
Under Income, add a row for each source: your main salary, any side work and any other regular payments. Put the amounts in column B and total them with a SUM formula.
Use your take-home pay, not your gross salary. Check your payslip for the figure that actually lands in your account after tax, pension and any other deductions.
Under Bills, list every fixed cost with its amount and due date: rent or mortgage, energy, water, phone, insurance, subscriptions and transport. Add a total row.
Under Spending, add rows for food, fuel, clothes, socialising and anything else you buy often. Base the numbers on your last two bank statements rather than on guesses.
Subtract the Bills and Spending totals from your income total. The figure left over is what you can send to savings and investing this month.
Split that leftover amount between the Savings and Investing rows. Pick a percentage you can keep to every month, such as 70 percent saved and 30 percent invested.
Add a Check row at the bottom that subtracts all outgoings plus savings from your income. It should come out at zero or above.
Duplicate the tab for the next month, rename it, and update the numbers. Add an Actual column beside your planned figures so you can compare them at month end.
Tips and common mistakes
Budget from your take-home pay so the plan matches the money you can actually spend.
Round bills up and add a small buffer row for one-off costs like car repairs or gifts.
Check the sheet halfway through the month and move money between rows instead of giving up on the plan.
Keep savings and investing as separate rows so you can see each pot growing on its own.
Questions
Should I use gross or net salary in the spreadsheet?
Use net, meaning the amount that reaches your bank account after tax and pension. Budgeting from gross pay makes your income look bigger than it is.
How much of my salary should go to savings?
There is no fixed rule. Start with an amount you can repeat every month, even a small one, then raise it once the bills rows stop changing.
Do I need a spreadsheet or can I use an app?
Either works. A spreadsheet is free, easy to copy for each month and simple to change, which is why many people start there before trying an app.
This guide was drafted from the video's details and general task knowledge. It has not been checked against the full video. Check the video and relevant product instructions before following a procedure. Report a correction.
