Workbook — Budgeting · Created October 5, 2026 · 1 min read
Paycheck Tracker
Every line of the stub, logged, so the deductions stop being a mystery.
Text Size
Most people know their salary and their take-home, and nothing in between. Logging the stub for a few months makes the gap concrete — and usually turns up at least one deduction nobody could explain.
Download: PaycheckTracker.xlsx — free, no email required, and it opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets.
What This Workbook Does
- A row per pay period with income, taxes, retirement contributions, employer-paid benefits and before-tax deductions.
- The employer-paid column matters: it is compensation you are receiving and almost never counting.
- A running picture of what actually reaches the bank across the year.
How to Use It
- Enter one row per paycheck, straight off the stub.
- Fill in the employer-paid benefits column even though it never hits your account. That is part of what the job pays.
- Watch the retirement line against your target percentage, not against the dollar amount.
- Revisit after any raise — the deductions change and the percentages usually drift.
What It Will Not Do
This tracks what you were paid, not whether it was correct. Compare it against your benefits election and your plan documents at least once a year.
Every workbook on this site is free. The full set — budgeting, debt, career, real estate and the kids’ sheets — is on the Worksheets & Planners page.
Where to go next: Your First Pay Stub — what each line on the stub actually means; Your First 401(k) — the retirement line, and the match to capture; White-Collar Compensation — the rest of the package around the salary.