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Home Renovation Budget & Quote Tracker
An editable spreadsheet for one renovation: a target, a line-by-line budget, the receipts you actually pay, contractor quotes, and a shopping list. The proposed introductory price is $9 CAD. This page is an interest test. There is no checkout, and the workbook is not offered as a download.
The file has seven sheets: Start here, Dashboard, Budget, Expenses, Quotes, Shopping, and Demo. The project sheets start blank, apart from headings, formulas, and a default project name. The Demo sheet is a labelled fictional example. It is not a price guide.
What the sheets do
- Planned and actual costs. Budget holds 40 lines. You enter a category, a description, a quantity, a unit, and a price before tax. Planned cost including tax is quantity times that price, times one plus the tax rate. A blank tax cell uses the default rate on Start here. Paid to date is the sum of Expenses rows with the same Budget ID and the status Paid. Still planned is what remains. Over by appears only when paid exceeds the plan.
- Contractor quotes and included work. Quotes holds 20 rows: the contractor, the scope, the amount before tax, a tax rate, extra fees, a timeline, warranty or exclusions, and a follow-up status. The comparable total is the quoted amount with tax, plus any extra fees. The sheet then counts the quotes and shows the lowest and highest comparable totals. A low number is not treated as the best quote.
- Remaining budget and contingency. Start here has a target budget, labelled in CAD, and a contingency allowance. The file opens with a target of 0, a contingency of 10%, a default tax rate of 0%, and the approach set to Undecided. The approach choices are Undecided, DIY, Hiring, and Mixed. That choice is a label. It does not change the totals. The dashboard’s contingency reserve is the planned total times the allowance. Forecast including reserve adds that reserve. Forecast margin is the target minus that forecast. Remaining versus target is the target minus paid and unpaid expenses.
- Materials and a shopping list. Shopping holds 40 rows. Still to buy is what you need minus what you already have, and it does not go below zero. Status is Not bought, Ordered, Purchased, or Not needed. Two counts at the bottom are rows still to buy, and rows marked Purchased. The shopping list does not, by itself, add money to the dashboard. Purchases go on Expenses if you want them in the paid total.
- A dashboard that reads the other sheets. It shows the project name, the target, planned line items, the contingency reserve, the forecast, paid, unpaid, and the margin. Under that, seven categories each show planned including tax, paid, unpaid, and what is left against the plan: Materials, Labour, Tools & supplies, Delivery & disposal, Finishing, Permits & fees, and Other. The category on an expense is looked up from the Budget ID.
- A hypothetical example, on its own sheet. Demo is titled “Guest bedroom painting” and says the prices are fictional and are not a contractor quote. The other sheets do not pull numbers from it.
How this differs from the free calculators
Paint, flooring, tile, and DIY vs. hire each answer one question in the browser. They do not save the project, they do not keep a receipt log, and they do not store several quotes side by side. They stay free.
The workbook is the record you keep afterward. It does not measure a room, count boxes, or count tiles. You type those quantities yourself, from a calculator on this site or from a supplier. It also does not look up store prices. Expenses has room for 100 lines. Only rows marked Paid count as paid. Unpaid is a separate total, so a bill you expect is not treated as money already spent. The file’s own note says to make a copy for each project, and not to put card numbers or other private payment details in it.
The Demo sheet says the same thing in its own words: one calculator gives a project estimate, and the workbook tracks planned costs, actual purchases, unpaid bills, and quote comparisons together.
Excerpts from the workbook
These tables are the real headings and the real example, not a redesigned sample. On a phone, scroll each table sideways. Blank project sheets calculate as zero until you type a quantity and a price.
| Target budget | Planned line items | Contingency reserve | Forecast incl. reserve |
|---|---|---|---|
| From Start here | Sum of planned budget lines | Planned times the allowance | Planned plus the reserve |
| Paid to date | Unpaid logged | Remaining vs target | Forecast margin |
| Expenses marked Paid | Expenses marked Unpaid | Target minus paid and unpaid | Target minus the forecast |
| ID | Category | Item / work description | Qty | Unit | Unit price (before tax) | Tax % | Planned incl. tax | Paid to date | Still planned | Over by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blank until you choose | Blank | Blank | Blank | Blank | Blank uses the default | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Item | Category | Qty | Unit price | Tax | Line cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wall paint | Materials | 2 | 54 | 13% | 122.04 |
| Primer | Materials | 1 | 38 | 13% | 42.94 |
| Roller + brush kit | Tools & supplies | 1 | 27 | 13% | 30.51 |
| Painter’s tape | Tools & supplies | 2 | 8.75 | 13% | 19.775 |
| Drop cloths | Tools & supplies | 2 | 14 | 13% | 31.64 |
| Delivery / transport | Delivery & disposal | 1 | 15 | 0% | 15 |
| Total materials and supplies | 261.905 | ||||
The same Demo sheet then prices time and a quote, still as fiction. Eight hours at 25 is 200. Adding that to 261.905 gives a DIY total of 461.905. A professional quote of 690 at 13% tax is 779.70. The sheet subtracts and shows an estimated DIY advantage of 317.795. Changing the hourly value changes that gap. None of those figures is a current price.
What it will not do
- It is not a bid, a code check, or a professional estimate. The footer of Start here says that.
- Tax applies only where a rate is entered or the default is left in place. Type 0% for a tax-exempt line. Keep one currency in the file.
- Dates for a planned start and finish are fields you can fill. They are not a schedule calculator.
- There is no account, no email field, and no payment on this website.
Would you pay $9 CAD for this?
$9 CAD is a proposed introductory price, not an offer you can accept today. The button only opens a thank-you page. It does not collect your name, email, or payment.
Yes, I'd consider buying this for $9 CAD