The Summary Page: "Lucky Thirteen"

Every Pagemonth Budget has twelve month pages plus a Summary Page, which I like to call "Lucky Thirteen."  You will find it to the right of January in your budget spreadsheet, occupying columns R through AF, and about 6o rows deep. 

It's not part of the default print area of the twelve monthpages, but you can edit it and print it when you need to or want to.  Before you decide to alter it, however, note that it is almost entirely formulas, plus some identifying labels and categories on its left and totals and averages on its right and bottom.

The Summary Page is something you'll refer to occasionally when you want to track patterns of income and expense, or get annual averages for setting up a new budget year, or grabbing totals for tax preparation, but normally you won't view it much, for a couple of reasons:

You won't often need to use your Summary Page because each monthpage gives you the same information for that month, and totals all income and expense categories individually for the year in the constantly updating center columns E and F to the nearest dollar.  The Summary Page simply presents those monthly totals in twelve monthly columns plus the year's totals and averages.

The Summary Page is also off to the side because it is formatted to display and print differently than the monthpages.  That means that to print it you will need to briefly reset the print area to the Summary Page area only, print it, then return to the default monthpages print area.

And it is off to the side as well because beside and below it are formula blocks for each monthpage you will only alter at your peril, and probably never have a need to print.

So, "Lucky 13" is what it is and where it is for several reasons.  But why do I call it "Lucky 13?"

Those who have used our Pagemonth Budget for a couple of years regularly may already know, because from the moment you begin to set up your spreadsheet through the last entry of December 31, you can watch your end balance grow and grow, and even recover from lean times or heavy expense times like vacations, holidays, birthdays,  unexpected needs and emergencies, and grow again.  It is the reward of planning ahead, adjusting to changes, and maintaining your budget.  If you do you will gain peace of mind.  And that's lucky.