A runway lasts exactly as long as the spending behind it. This fillable tracker keeps your real weekly spending next to your target, with live totals, so a small drift shows up in days, not at the end of a month when it is too late to adjust. Type straight into the boxes below, nothing is saved or sent anywhere, and use Print to keep a copy.
During a no-income period, overspending is quiet and cumulative. A monthly review only tells you the bad news once the month is gone and the money is spent. A weekly view is the early-warning system: if you are 80 over target in week one, you notice while there are still three weeks to pull it back. Over a six-month gap, that difference is the gap between the runway you planned for and a version that ends a month or two early. The tracker exists to make the drift visible while you can still do something about it.
Take your monthly essential burn from the budget planner and divide it by 4.3 (the average weeks in a month) to get a weekly target. If your essentials are 3,000 a month, your weekly target is about 700. For bills that are charged monthly or annually, enter their weekly share, the monthly amount divided by 4.3, or the annual amount divided by 52. Put those targets in the first column.
Each week, fill in what you actually spent in the second column. The tracker shows the difference per line and the running totals at the bottom in real time. Green means you are at or under target on the total; red means you are over. The goal each week is simple: land at or under your total target, and notice early if a category is creeping.
| Category | Weekly target | Actual | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing (weekly share) | |||
| Food and groceries | |||
| Transport | |||
| Utilities and phone (share) | |||
| Health and insurance (share) | |||
| Debt minimums (share) | |||
| Family and childcare | |||
| Other essentials | |||
| Discretionary | |||
| Weekly total | 0 | 0 |
Totals update as you type. To keep a running record across weeks, print one copy per week, or copy the rows into a spreadsheet.
Monthly and annual costs do not disappear because they did not hit this week. Enter their weekly share so the total reflects reality, not just this week's invoices.
The small, frequent spends, coffees, deliveries, subscriptions, are where runway quietly leaks. Put them under discretionary and watch the total.
One over-target week is noise; a trend over three is signal. Adjust on the pattern, not the panic.
The point of tracking is to update your end date. If your real burn is higher than planned, the runway calculator tells you by how much.
This template tracks the budget you build in the budget planner, and protects the runway you size in the runway calculator. Start there, then track here week by week.
Divide your monthly essential expenses by 4.3, the average number of weeks in a month. If your essentials are 3,000 a month, your weekly target is about 700. Tracking weekly catches overspending earlier than a monthly review, because a small drift shows up in days rather than at the end of the month when it is too late to adjust.
A runway only lasts as long as the spending behind it, and during a no-income period small overspends compound fast. Weekly tracking gives you an early warning while you still have months in hand, so you can trim before a four-month runway quietly becomes a three-month one. Monthly is too coarse to catch a drift in time.
Your essential expenses, the costs you must cover with no income: housing, utilities, food, transport, insurance, minimum debt payments, and family costs, plus the weekly share of any monthly or annual bills. Keep discretionary spending on a separate line so you can see your true survival number against your comfortable one.
No. The template runs entirely in your browser and stores nothing on a server. The numbers you type are not sent anywhere, and if you want a permanent copy you can print the page or save it as a PDF. For a recurring tracker, copy the structure into a spreadsheet or notes app.
Find the one or two categories driving the overspend rather than cutting everything, and adjust the next week. Then re-run your runway with the higher real figure to see whether your end date has moved. Catching it weekly means you can act, trim spending or widen your job search, while you still have time on your side.