DIY Wedding Cost Tracker

“DIY will save us a fortune” is a hypothesis. This tracker tests it — project by project, with the materials receipts, the other costs everyone forgets, the hours, and the honest price of buying the same thing ready-made.

Six sample projects: invitations, centrepieces, signage, favours, a photo booth backdrop, silk bouquets. Five of them save real money — $564 saved across the set. And one of them does not. The homemade jam favours cost $290 in fruit, sugar, jars and a failed first batch, against a $240 ready-made price: COST MORE, flagged on the project’s own row. A tracker that only prints good news is a scrapbook; this one prints the jam.

The sheet also pays you, on paper: $564 saved over 57 hours is $9.89 an hour — your DIY wage, printed at the bottom. Some couples see that number and buy the rest ready-made with a clear conscience. That is a good outcome too.

Underneath, the Materials Shopping List ties every supply to its project, and its total must match the Projects tab’s materials column to the cent — $916 in the sample, checked by formula, so nothing gets bought twice or costed nowhere.

What it does for you:
– Prices every DIY project fully: materials + other costs + hours, vs the buy-ready price
– Flags projects that cost MORE than buying — on their own row, in the sample and in yours
– Computes your DIY wage: total saved ÷ hours spent ($9.89/hr in the sample)
– Cross-checks the shopping list against the projects tab — totals must match to the cent
– Counts the money-losers separately, so one bad project cannot hide inside a good total
– Adds a planning expense log, zero-based monthly budget, dashboard and 12-month summary

What’s inside (.xlsx, works in Excel AND Google Sheets):
– Start Here — setup steps and wedding date setting
– DIY Projects — 6 sample projects with full costing, verdicts, totals and the DIY wage
– Materials Shopping List — 8 supplies tied to projects, with the two-tab cross-check
– Expense Log, Monthly Budget, Dashboard, Monthly Summary

Instant download. Type only in the yellow cells — formula cells are locked (password: sheetdaily, disclosed on the Start Here tab so you can unlock if you ever need to). Sample projects are pre-filled so you can see exactly how it works; clear the yellow cells and type your own. Planning tool only — buy-ready prices are your own quotes and listings; re-check them before deciding a project “saves” anything.