Road Trip Budget Planner with Gas Calculator

Most road trip budgets guess the fuel. This planner doesn’t: you log the drive leg by leg — from, to, distance, and the fuel price you actually paid on that leg — and it works out fuel used and fuel cost per leg from your own fuel-economy setting, in your own units (km and litres, or miles and gallons — the arithmetic is identical, and the sheet never converts or assumes).

The sample drive is honest about where road trip money really goes. Across 6 legs and 2,210 km the fuel comes to $307.93 — but lodging is the biggest cost at $700.00, and the sheet prints that plainly instead of letting the gas calculator pretend otherwise. The mountain-town leg paid $1.85 a litre against $1.64 at the cheapest stop, and the summary prices that difference exactly: $4.87 extra on that one leg. The trip totals $1,639.00 against a $1,500 cap: OVER BUDGET by $139.00, printed in words.

HOW IT WORKS
– ‘Route & Fuel Log’: one row per leg — from, to, distance and fuel price typed by you; fuel used (distance / your fuel-economy setting) and fuel cost calculate per leg and total at the bottom.
– ‘Trip Cost Summary’: fuel from the log, food as trip days x your per-day figure, lodging as nights x your per-night figure, tolls & parking typed once, plus your buffer — then the verdict against your own budget cap, cost per day, cost per distance unit and fuel’s share of the whole trip.
– Every input is yours: distances, prices, economy, daily figures and the cap are all typed settings, so the same workbook prices a weekend run or a cross-country drive.

WHAT’S INSIDE
– Leg-by-leg route log with per-leg fuel pricing (sample: 6 legs, 2,210 km, 176.80 litres, $307.93)
– A trip cost summary with a printed OVER/UNDER verdict against your own cap
– The honest headline: lodging ($700.00), not fuel, is the sample’s biggest cost — and it says so
– Cost per day ($273.17) and cost per distance unit ($0.74) on the sample
– Plus the standard Expense Log, zero-based Monthly Budget, Dashboard and Monthly Summary tabs

Change any price, any distance or the cap and every line moves. The sample is just honest — your trip gets your numbers.

How it works: the seven tabs are Start Here (your settings + step-by-step), the two feature tabs, Expense Log, Monthly Budget (zero-based), Dashboard and Monthly Summary. Yellow cells are the only places you type — every yellow value is your own entry. Formula cells are locked (password: sheetdaily, disclosed on the Start Here tab) and every formula is error-wrapped, so an untouched sheet reads blank instead of showing error codes. Instant download, ready for Excel and Google Sheets.

A note on the sample data: every price and date in this workbook is example data, typed in by hand to show you how the sheet behaves. Replace it with your own.