Kakeibo template

Kakeibo is the Art Of Saving Money, originated from Japan since 1904, and has become a popular way all around the world on a way to save money. The Japanese tradition of using a Kakeibo, which translates to “household finance ledger,” offers an easy solution to mindless spending habits.

What is Kakeibo?

Pronounced ‘Kah-Keh-Boh’, the Kakeibo ledger is a traditional journal, enhanced with a couple of steps in order to manage your finance correctly and save money. It's a simple but clever Japanese philosophy to save money, by plan your finance at the beginning of the month and consider in a couple of steps how much money you would need and how much you would like to save, and what you need to do to achieve that goal.

The new generation struggles with saving money. They rather spend it on an expensive coffee... is an often-heard claim. But with rising rents, high inflation, and poorer wages, saving will become more and more important, and the need to overhaul our spending habits will become urgent sooner or later. Therefore, if you are looking to overhaul your finances, consider checking out this financial diary to help with this money-saving process.

How to make a Kakeibo budget?

The Kakeibo method consists of five steps:

1. How much money is coming in each month? Calculate this by deducting any fixed expenditures/costs, such as rent, gas/light, etc from your monthly income.
2. What is your target or how much would you like to save? Determine how much you want to set aside for that.
3. How much are you spending? Keep this Kakeibo journal of your spending by jotting down the daily totals of your expenditure next to the categories of your choosing.
4. Subtract your 2 and 3 from 1 and divide it by 4. What you are left with is what you will spend each week on food, gifts, etc.
   
5. How can you improve? Reflect on your progress at the end of each week and month, to see if you’re on track to meet your target. Think about what you would change for next month. Set yourself a saving target and use this to calculate a weekly spending limit that you will need to stick to in order to meet your savings goal.

To give you a better idea of how it looks, we have prepared a weekly and monthly Kakeibo budget spreadsheet in Excel. At the end of the month, you check whether it has been successful and what your areas for improvement are if it has not been successful.

Download this Kakeibo Budget Excel template directly and improve your way of life and spending! Wish you great success!