ADHD Budget Planner: Fewer Categories and One Number a Day

Most budgets ask you to hold a monthly table in your head and divide it at the till: how much of the grocery line is left, how many days are left, is this coffee fine. For a lot of people with ADHD that is the step that fails, and once a tracker has been skipped for a week it is hard to go back. This article walks through a budget built the other way round: you type what you spend, and you look at one number, safe to spend today.

The sample month: 3,480 in, one number out

The sample file is set to September 2026, and "today" is the 17th, day 17 of 30. Income is three rows: two paychecks of 1,520 on the 4th and the 18th and a side gig of 440. There are 8 bills, from rent of 1,150 to streaming at 18, and 3 sinking funds that take 195 a month. The Spending log has 34 rows from 1 to 17 September.

Everything except the bottom line is there for checking. The tile you look at on your phone before you pay is the last one.

Safe to spend today, worked out

On the 1st of the month the daily amount is simple: 1,695 / 30 = 56.50. By the 17th the sample had spent 973.05 before today, against 16 x 56.50 = 904.00 on plan, so it is 69.05 ahead of plan. Spread over the 14 days that are left, that is 4.93 a day less: 56.50 - 4.93 = 51.57. Today already has a 4.85 latte and 12.50 of cat litter, 17.35 in total, so what is still safe today is 51.57 - 17.35 = 34.22.

In the file that is one formula on the Today tab, where I20 is money for spending, I21 spent this month, I22 spent today and I17 the days left including today:

=(I20 - (I21 - I22)) / I17 - I22

On the sample: (1,695 - (990.40 - 17.35)) / 14 - 17.35 = 34.22. The days left are the days in the month minus today's day number plus one:

=DAY(EOMONTH(I6, 0)) - DAY(I15) + 1

I6 is the 1st of the month you typed, I15 is today. 30 - 17 + 1 = 14. The point of subtracting yesterday's spending inside the division, and today's outside it, is that a bad day only hurts that day. Overspend by 20 today and tomorrow's number drops by about 1.54 (20 spread over 13 days), not by 20.

There is also a "before you buy" row. In the sample someone is looking at clothes for 68. The file answers: 34.22 - 68 = -33.78 today, 704.60 - 68 = 636.60 for the month, so the verdict reads "Not today. It still fits this month." Nothing is logged by that row.

Fewer categories, and where the money went

The log has six columns: date, amount, category, paid with, want or need, note. The category list is 20 yellow cells you rename, and the sample uses 13 of them. Five categories hold almost 79% of the month:

Coffee is the classic small leak: 6 rows, 31.00 by the 17th, never more than 6.40 at a time. It does not need its own budget line, it only needs to be logged, because it is already inside the 990.40 that the daily number uses. A category total, if you want one, is a SUMIFS on the date range of the month:

=SUMIFS(B6:B1005, A6:A1005, ">="&DATE(2026,9,1),
        A6:A1005, "<="&EOMONTH(DATE(2026,9,1),0), C6:C1005, "Groceries")

That returns 376.15 on the sample. Because it matches on the date, rows typed late and out of order still land in the right month. The want or need column adds up the same way: 639.09 of needs and 351.31 of wants, a want share of 35.5% of tracked spending. Measured against income, the wants are 351.31 / 3,480 = 10.1%, well under the 30% that the 50/30/20 budget allows.

The 48 hour impulse pause

The thing you want right now goes on a list instead of into the basket: what it is, the price, the date. Two days later the status turns to Decide now, and you pick Bought or Skipped.

The status is one IF chain, with D the date added and F the decision:

=IF(F6="Bought", "Bought", IF(F6="Skipped", "Skipped",
   IF(TODAY() >= D6 + 2, "Decide now", "Still waiting")))

And what the pause kept is a SUMIF on the decision column:

=SUMIF(F6:F25, "Skipped", C6:C25)

In the sample: headphones at 180 and a Lego set at 130 were skipped, 310 in total. The air fryer, 95, was bought after the pause and is logged on the Spending log like any other purchase. The standing desk (320) and the label maker (45) are waiting, 365 together. Note that the desk has been "Decide now" for 12 days: the pause does not decide for you, it only makes sure the decision is not made at 11 pm.

Bills and sinking funds come out first

All 8 bills, 1,590, leave the spending money on the 1st, whether they are paid or not. By the 17th, 1,298 is paid and 292 is still to come; 164 of that is due in the next 7 days (phone 65 on the 19th, wifi 55 on the 21st, gym 44 on the 23rd), and the car insurance of 128 is on the 27th. Because the bills were never part of the 1,695, paying them does not move the daily number. If you want the due dates on a calendar, the bill calendar article covers that side.

The table shows a real problem with the sample: at 70 a month the Christmas fund is full in March 2027, three months after Christmas. To fill the remaining 420 over October, November and December takes 140 a month. Typing 140 instead of 70 takes another 70 out of spending money, so 1,695 becomes 1,625, left this month becomes 634.60 and safe per day drops from 50.33 to 45.33. Less money per day, but no surprise in December.

Skip the setup

Everything above is in one file: Today with the daily number and the before you buy row, a Spending log of 1,000 rows, Bills, Income, Sinking Funds, the Impulse Pause, a By Month view of the year, a Phone tab and the Dashboard. There is also a Lite file with only Today, Spending log, Bills and Dashboard, for the months when 10 tabs is too many. If your income comes every two weeks, the biweekly paycheck budget explains how to handle the three-paycheck months.

ADHD Budget Planner for Google Sheets and Excel

One number a day: safe to spend today. Type what you spend, the file spreads what is left over the days that are left, with a 48 hour impulse pause, bills and sinking funds. Lite (5 tabs) and Full (10 tabs), sample data and blank copies, undated, any currency.

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