Christmas is the most beautiful time of the year. There’s nothing you can hate about the snow-filled streets, fresh eggnog, and the sound of carols.
However, December also brings in the big bills, end-of-the-year invoices, and a hefty holiday season spending spree.
To experience joyful and stress-free Christmas gift-giving this year, you must start planning today using budgeting spreadsheets.
We’ve got the six best free Google Sheets Christmas budget templates for you to get started with your Christmas planning. Let’s dive in.
1. Free Downloadable Christmas Budget Template
Designed by Married Harried
This exhaustive Christmas Master Gift List is everything you need to plan, budget, and keep track of your Christmas gifts this year.
This single-sheet budget includes individual tables with multiple rows for every giftee in your life.
It also includes purchasing information, tracking/delivery date, shipping date, and gift receipts.
Just feed in the estimated budget in the first row of each table and list every gift item and its actual price. The remaining budget in the final row of the table will take care of itself.
2. Christmas Gift Budget Template
Designed by Vertex42
The Christmas Budget Template provides a straightforward and customizable table that you can tailor to your unique gift-giving needs.
The secret to intelligent Christmas budget planning is leaving some wiggle room for last-minute and unexpected gifting expenses. Thankfully, the final rows of this handy template have some extra rows that cover that.
The auto-populating ‘Left Over’ column fills with the difference between budgeted and actual spending.
3. Christmas Shopping Budget Template
Designed by Chatbooks
Add brightness and flair to your Christmas shopping spree with this festive color-coded template from Chatbooks.
The Holiday Shopping Tracker contains three columns for gift ideas, purchase links, and estimated costs.
Once you have customized the template to suit your needs, you can add the appropriate status for each giftee (e.g., ordered, sent, received) and let this Google Sheet take over the gift tracking this Christmas.
4. Christmas Gift Tracker Budget Template
Designed by Producing Paradise
If you want a dedicated budget for gifts, this template is for you.
It’s designed exclusively for keeping a tab on gifts and has special columns for giftees, brands, and gifts, followed by the budgeted amount and the actual spending.
Once you finish your gift haul, the total budget is auto-calculated at the end, allowing you to track your spending status easily.
5. Сhristmas Gift Budget List Template Per Person
Designed by Mums Make List
If Christmas season gift-giving is your Olympics, then this Mums Make List template can be the coach that allows you to keep your spending on track.
You fill in your estimated gift budget in the first row. Then the columns are dedicated to the giftee, gift, purchase link, budgeted cost per item, actual cost, and finally, the balance.
The template ensures that no details sneak past you, not even the often-overlooked shipping and delivery status for each gift.
6. Christmas Party Budget Template
Designed by Spreadsheet Daddy
Spreadsheet Daddy’s concise template is easy to use and visually appealing. It’s a simple but effective template that splits your expenses into three subheadings: gifts, meals, and miscellaneous costs.
Simply allocate a budget for each item, add the actual cost, and the template will log the difference automatically.
If you need a different template, you can also use our step-by-step process to create your own Christmas budget template.
How to Make a Christmas Budget Template
This step-by-step guide illustrates how to make your own original template within minutes.
So, let’s get started!
Step 1. Open a fresh Google Sheet and make four columns: Expense, Budgeted, Actual, and Difference.
Step 2. Next, customize the font style, size, color, and other settings as per your preference.
Step 3. If you want to merge certain cells, click the Merge cells icon, and select Merge all.
Step 4. Create clear subheadings by filling the cells with colors, as shown in the image below.
Step 5. Border the cells by highlighting a section, selecting the Border icon, and picking a border style.
Step 6. The final step is automating the final tally with the help of Google Sheet formulas. To do that, simply click on the ‘Difference’ column and enter the formula to calculate values.
In this template, we use =C9-B9 to get the final difference between budgeted and actual spending.
Voila! That’s all! You’ve just completed your own Christmas Budget Template.
Remember: smart budgeting is key to a joyful and stress-free Christmas.
While Christmas is the season to be jolly, it’s important to have a proper budget before December rolls over.
Thankfully, you can get started with these versatile and customizable Christmas budget spreadsheets and take control of your spending for 2023.
