Monthly budget planner for newcomers and international students
Moving from another country to Canada is always overwhelming. I can imagine it is was bit hard for me to understand local currency and manage my monthly budget. We used to pay our rent weekly when we were back in New Zealand. In Canada, rent is paid monthly so adjustments were required. Most of the companies in Canada pay their employees bi-weekly.
I created the sample excel sheet to calculate my expenses. I’ve being using this workbook for last few months. I have created two tables to monitor – expenses and income.
Expense table
Right down all the monthly expenses. I tend to right everything which happens on recurring basis. This helps to understand all of your monthly expenses
| Car Insurance | $330.00 |
| Car finance | $450.00 |
| Rent | $1000.00 |
| Grocery | $400.00 |
| Utilizes | $500.00 |
| Phone bills | $150.00 |
| Entertainment | $23.00 |
| Misc | $343.00 |
| Total | $3196.00 |
Income table
Write all the sources of income and amount. Add all income sources and then minus fixed monthly expenses. You will left with potential savings (every month)
| Partner 1 salary | $2,500.00 |
| Partner 2 salary | $3,000.00 |
| Childcare benefit | $700.00 |
| Total | $6,200.00 |
| Savings (after all expenses) | $3,004.00 |
These values are tentative but they help to understand how to do baisc planning and budgeting. Estimate savings can help you to plan things like down payments for house, buying a new car etc.
I hope this will help someone. Please feel free to share your saving strategies with us which can motivate and help others.
