SPREADSHEET
Home Renovation Budget & Project Tracker
IN ONE PARAGRAPHThe Home Renovation Budget Tracker is a spreadsheet that holds budget versus actual spend, contractor bids and contingency in one place, flagging overspend as it happens rather than at the end. The Home Renovation Budget Tracker costs $8 once and needs no macros.
Renovations go over budget when you lose track of the small stuff. This keeps every dollar visible. The Home Renovation Budget & Project Tracker turns a messy pile of quotes and receipts into a clear picture: what you planned, what you've actually spent, and exactly where you're over or under — room by room.
What it does for you
- Log every line of work with Room and Category dropdowns, budgeted vs. actual cost, and status
- Budget-vs-actual variance on every line and every room — overspend shows in red, automatically
- Dashboard: total budgeted, spent, remaining, % of budget used, and % of tasks complete
- Breakdowns by room and by category so you see instantly where the money is going
- Contingency buffer: set a % cushion (10–20% is normal for renovations) and see your true total
- Contractor bid comparison: drop in up to three quotes per item; the lowest is highlighted and totalled
Why a spreadsheet, not a printable
A printed checklist can't add up your spend or flag the bathroom that's $200 over. This one does the math for you — every roll-up, variance, and total is a live formula, machine-verified for correctness. A plain-English "Start Here" sheet gets you going in minutes.
What you get
- 1 × .xlsx workbook — Dashboard + Budget + Bids + Start Here sheets, 60 budget lines ready to fill
- Works in Excel 2010+, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice — no macros, no add-ins
- Yellow cells are yours; everything else calculates itself. A worked kitchen/bathroom example shows the format.
- Yours forever, free updates.
Note: this tool does the arithmetic on the numbers you enter — it doesn't estimate costs for you. Always get real quotes for your area, and keep that contingency buffer; renovations commonly run over.
Verification
Every metric uses the standard industry definition and the formulas are machine-tested for arithmetic correctness before release. The spreadsheet ships with a worked example and a plain-English “Start Here” sheet.
