Spreadsheets
Job Loss Budget Spreadsheet: Know Exactly How Far Your Money Goes
A budget spreadsheet built for the months after job loss.
The details
- Format: Spreadsheet
- Delivery: instant digital download, nothing ships
- Use: print at home or use on a tablet, reprint forever
What the Job Loss Budget Spreadsheet Is
Losing your job breaks your old budget overnight. The income line goes to whatever unemployment or severance covers, and every spending decision suddenly matters more. This Google Sheets and Excel spreadsheet helps you rebuild your budget around less income: enter your essentials, see what you have left, and plan how far your savings stretch.
The formulas do the math so you can focus on what comes next. You get a clear monthly picture, an emergency fund runway calculation, and a budget that reflects your real situation instead of the life you had last month.
Rebuilding Your Budget Around Essentials
The first job after a layoff is separating essentials from everything else. Housing, utilities, food, transportation, insurance, minimum debt payments: these are the non negotiables. Everything else gets cut, paused, or reduced until income returns.
The spreadsheet makes this triage concrete. You list every expense, mark it essential or not, and the sheet shows your new monthly burn rate. Most people find the number is lower than they feared, which is the first moment of calm in a chaotic week. You cannot plan until you know the number, and now you know it.
The Runway Calculation: How Long Your Savings Last
The most important number after job loss is your runway: how many months your savings cover at your new burn rate. The spreadsheet calculates it automatically from your emergency fund balance and your essential monthly spending.
That number drives every decision. Six months of runway means you can job search carefully. Two months means you cut deeper and consider bridge income now. Either way, deciding from a real number beats deciding from anxiety. Update the sheet monthly as spending changes and the runway updates with it.
Tracking Severance, Unemployment, and Bridge Income
Post layoff income is messy. Severance paid as a lump sum or over months, unemployment benefits with a weekly amount and a fixed duration, maybe freelance or gig income filling gaps. The spreadsheet gives each income source its own line so you can see what is coming in, for how long, and what happens when each source ends.
This matters because severance and unemployment run out. A budget that works in month one can break in month four when the severance ends. The sheet shows those cliffs before you hit them, so you can plan the landing.
Who This Is For
It is for anyone in the weeks after a layoff, a contract ending, or hours being cut. It is for the newly unemployed person who opened their banking app and felt their stomach drop. It is for couples where one income just disappeared and the household budget needs rebuilding now.
It is also for the careful planner. If you see layoffs coming in your industry, building this budget before you need it turns a crisis into a plan. The spreadsheet works in Google Sheets and Excel, so you can start on whatever you have.
What's inside
- Essential vs non essential expense sorter that calculates your new monthly burn rate
- Emergency fund runway calculator showing how many months your savings cover
- Income tracker for severance, unemployment benefits, and bridge or gig income
- Monthly budget view rebuilt around your reduced income
- Severance and benefit end date tracking so income cliffs never surprise you
- Cut list worksheet for pausing subscriptions and reducing discretionary spending
- Works in Google Sheets and Excel with formulas that update as your numbers change
How it works
Open the spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Excel and enter your current savings, severance, and expected unemployment benefits.
List every monthly expense and mark each essential or not. The sheet calculates your new burn rate and your runway in months.
Update income and spending monthly. Watch the runway number and adjust cuts or bridge income plans before it gets short.
Questions
Questions, answered
What buyers ask before downloading this planner.
Your runway is how many months your savings last at your current spending rate. The spreadsheet divides your emergency fund by your essential monthly spending to give you the number. It is the single most useful figure after job loss.
Enter it as its own income line with its payment schedule, lump sum or monthly. The sheet factors it into your runway and shows you when it ends, so the budget reflects reality after the severance runs out.
That is a personal decision, and the spreadsheet helps you see the tradeoff. The cut list worksheet lets you model pausing contributions and shows how much runway each cut buys you. For personalized guidance, talk to a financial professional.
The spreadsheet still helps. Your runway will show zero, which tells you the priority: cut to the bone immediately and find bridge income fast. The expense sorter shows exactly where every dollar is going so you can act.
Both. You get a Google Sheets version and an Excel version. Use whichever you have; the formulas and structure are the same.
No. This is a budgeting and calculation tool for organizing your money after job loss. It does not provide financial, tax, or legal advice about unemployment benefits, severance, or debt.
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