Free Renovation Budget Spreadsheet
Free download + how it's built · 2026
Download the free template
An Excel file with the structure from this page already set up: the seven columns, nine starter categories, a working Remaining formula, a TOTAL row, and a second sheet explaining how to use it. Opens in Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice or Numbers.
Download the spreadsheet (.xlsx)Free, and no email required. Nothing to sign up for.
If you searched for a free renovation budget spreadsheet, or a renovation costing spreadsheet, which is the same thing, you already have the right instinct: get the numbers out of your head and into a grid. The rest of this page explains how the template is built, so you can change it to fit your job instead of trusting a black box.
The columns that matter
Most people make a spreadsheet with two columns — item and cost — and that's exactly the version that quietly goes over budget. The useful version separates what you plan from what you've committed from what you've paid:
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Category | Plumbing, Electrical, Kitchen, etc. |
| Item | The specific job or order |
| Budget | Your planned amount |
| Committed | Quotes accepted / orders placed (money owed) |
| Paid | Money actually sent |
| Remaining | Budget − Committed (your real exposure) |
| Notes | Contractor, dates, anything useful |
The one formula to add: in Remaining, use = Budget − Committed, not Budget − Paid. Tracking against committed money is what shows trouble coming, because a quote you've accepted is already spent even though the cash hasn't left yet.
A starting category list
Create one row block per category and sub-total each. A typical renovation budget spreadsheet covers:
- Demolition & prep (strip-out, skips, protection)
- Structural (walls, beams, openings, engineer fees)
- Plumbing (first-fix, drainage, fixtures)
- Electrical (rewire, sockets, lighting, certs)
- Plaster & decorating
- Kitchen / bathroom (units, worktops, appliances, sanitaryware)
- Flooring & tiling (materials + labour)
- Fees & permits (design, building control, surveys)
- Contingency (a reserve — see how much to set aside)
Add a grand-total row at the bottom that sums the category sub-totals, and a "remaining vs budget" cell so you can see the whole picture at a glance.
Where spreadsheets fall short
A spreadsheet is great for planning and terrible at the part that actually keeps you on budget: staying current while the work happens. In practice, the cracks show up fast:
- It doesn't follow you to site. The payment you made at the merchant on Tuesday gets logged "later" — and later is where budgets die.
- No cash-flow view. A spreadsheet that balances overall can still hit you with three big payments in the same week. It won't warn you.
- Fragile formulas. One deleted row or dragged cell and the totals are quietly wrong.
- No schedule. Money and time are the same problem in a renovation; a budget sheet ignores the calendar entirely.
- Contingency drift. It's easy to forget to deduct a draw, and a stale reserve number gives false confidence.
The same idea, built for a live project
Storypole takes the spreadsheet structure above — categories, committed vs paid, a contingency buffer — and makes it a live tool: it forecasts your cash flow, keeps a critical-path schedule next to the money, works offline in your pocket on site, and can't be broken by a stray cell. It's free for one project, with no account, and your data stays on your device. You can still export to Excel any time.
Try Storypole — freeRelated: How to make a renovation budget · Renovation contingency explained