2026 Holiday Gift & Budget Planner (Excel)

Get through the 2026 holidays without blowing your budget. One simple Excel file for gifts, meals, cards and Black Friday deals, with no app or subscription.

2026 Holiday Gift & Budget Planner is a clean, fully automatic workbook:

• Budget Dashboard: type your total holiday budget and a budget for each category (gifts, food, events, decorations, cards, travel, outfits, charity, other). Spent, remaining and % used update by themselves, with a budget-vs-spent chart, a "where the money went" pie chart, gift spending by group and a countdown to Christmas.
• Gift List: recipient, group, gift idea, budget, actual price, store or link and status (Idea / Ordered / Bought / Wrapped / Given). Over-budget gifts turn red, given gifts turn green.
• Events & Meal Planner: list parties and gatherings with dates, guests and costs, then plan the big holiday meal dish by dish: who cooks, prep day, ingredients to buy, estimated and actual cost.
• Holiday Card List: names, addresses, Sent / Received dropdowns and postage totals.
• Black Friday & Cyber Monday Deal Tracker: regular price, deal price, your max price, savings and % off, plus total saved on what you bought. 2026 dates included (Black Friday Nov 27, Cyber Monday Nov 30).
• Other Expenses: decorations, travel, wrapping paper, donations and more, sorted by category into the dashboard.
• Countdown & To-Do: days left to Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas and New Year, plus a ready-made checklist from October to New Year's Eve. Overdue tasks turn red.

Works with any currency. Works in Excel 2016+ (Windows and Mac), Excel mobile, WPS and LibreOffice. Google Sheets works too; charts and some colour rules may look slightly different.

Sample rows are included so you can see it working. Delete them and you're ready to go.

What you get: 1 × .xlsx file (8 sheets). Instant download.

License: personal use. Please don't resell.