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Money After Burnout
For the months when the income stopped: how long the money you can reach actually lasts, with a date on it — what to stop paying and in what order, what a month costs at the floor, and the month going back to work stops the money falling.
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- What you need: Excel 2016+ · Google Sheets · PDF (US Letter + A4)
- 14-day refund — just message us, no form to fill in
- 9 pages
- 11 sheets · 1,214 formulas
- Formats: .xlsx (Excel 2016+, Google Sheets) + PDF guide
- ZIP: 677 KB
Set it up, use it for at least a week, and if it genuinely isn't right for you, send us a message within 14 days with a screenshot of your setup and we'll refund you in full.
Almost every money tool assumes a salary and a person with the energy to run a budget. This one assumes neither. It is built for the situation where someone has stopped working, gone part-time, or taken leave — because of burnout, illness or something breaking — and the income has collapsed at exactly the point when doing admin is hardest. The usual advice, cut discretionary spending and build a six-month emergency fund, is no use to somebody who has already cut everything they can see and has three weeks of money left.
So it answers four questions instead, in the order they actually matter. How long do I have? What can I stop paying, and in what order? What does a month cost me at the absolute floor, and how far short am I? And when income restarts, when does this stop getting worse? Three inputs get you the first answer, and the Start Here tab says so in plain words: you can stop after step three and still have the number.
The runway is money you can reach divided by what you are short each month — not by what goes out. Sick pay, a partner chipping in, a benefit, whatever work is left: all of it is subtracted first, because ignoring it can halve the answer. Money is bucketed by whether you could reach it now, inside a month, or not without a penalty, and only the first two count; a pension is listed underneath with its own subtotal so it is neither counted as runway nor forgotten. The answer comes back both ways — 3.7 months, and a date — because a date is what you can plan around.
Every outgoing carries what would happen if you stopped paying it: legal, home, health and food, credit record, costs to stop, or you would simply be without it. The order to stop things in comes from consequence first and amount second, and the rule is printed on the sheet next to the list it produced, so you can disagree with it knowingly. Nothing with a legal, housing or health consequence goes on the list at all — those lines stay in your floor whatever else happens, and the sheet says why. Against each position it shows the running total saved and the months of cover that buys, which is the only honest test of whether cutting is the answer at all. For the sample household it buys about half a month, and the workbook says so rather than flattering anyone.
The survival budget is rebuilt upwards from what genuinely cannot be stopped, then adds back only what you have actively decided to keep — because last year's budget was written for a working life you are not living, and trimming it keeps its assumptions. Anything you have not decided about is counted in what you are paying now, left out of the floor, and totalled separately, so the floor is never quietly inflated by lines nobody has looked at. What comes out is one number: how much has to come from somewhere else, every month.
Then the part nobody else does. At the income you expect when you go back, the workbook shows the gap, how many months of step-up close it, the month you first cover your own costs, the lowest your money gets and when you are back to what you have today — all read off a 24-month plan with two columns you can overwrite when you know better. If the plan does not hold, it says by how much, in which month, and gives three levers with the arithmetic for each. Above the floor it shows how much to take and how much to hold back to put the buffer together again.
Eleven linked sheets and over twelve hundred formulas, audited line by line against a list of functions Google Sheets does not have, and checked against an independently written model to the cent. Any currency, any starting month, any as-of date. A nine-page print pack comes with it in US Letter and A4, colour and ink saver — including a week-by-week page for the month, because when money is tight the timing matters more than the total, and a page for the calls and letters that do more than any subscription you cancel.
What you get
- 11 linked sheets, 1,200+ formulas — no macros, no add-ins, nothing locked, nothing hidden
- A runway with a date on it: money you can reach ÷ what you are short each month, shown at three levels of spending, with the arithmetic set out line by line
- Money bucketed by whether you can actually reach it — now, within a month, or only at a penalty — and only what arrives in time counts
- Money coming in is subtracted before anything else: sick pay, a partner's contribution, a benefit, whatever work is left
- A consequence tier on every outgoing — legal, home, health and food, credit record, costs to stop, do without — with editable weights
- An ordered list of what to stop first, the rule printed beside it, and the months of cover each cut actually buys
- Nothing with a legal, housing or health consequence is ever put on that list; those lines stay in your floor and the sheet explains why
- A survival floor built upwards from what cannot be stopped, group by group, with undecided lines counted separately
- The one number: how much has to come from somewhere else every month, in cash, per month, per week and per day
- Re-entry: the gap at restart, the months of step-up that close it, the first month you cover your own costs, the lowest point, and when you are back to today
- 24-month plan with override columns, plus how much to take and how much to hold back once you are above the floor
- 9-page print pack in 4 files (US Letter + A4, colour + ink saver), including a week-by-week month page and a calls-and-letters log
- Any currency, any start month, any as-of date · Excel 2016+ and Google Sheets · set-up PDF included
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What's inside
Questions
Is this a mental-health tool?
No. It is a calculator, and it says so on the first sheet you open. It cannot tell you anything about your health, it makes no claims and it is not a substitute for talking to a doctor or another qualified professional. What it does is the arithmetic on numbers you type in, which is the part that gets very hard to do when everything else is hard — and which nobody else has built for this situation.
I have almost nothing left. Is this going to make me feel worse?
It will tell you the truth, calmly, without urgency language or red alarms, and without telling you what you should have done. Where the news is bad it is stated as arithmetic — the amount, the month — because a number you can aim at is more use than a feeling that it is not enough. Where it is better than you feared, and quite often it is once money coming in is counted properly, it says that too.
Why does the cut list not include my rent, even though it is the biggest thing I pay?
Because a spreadsheet is in no position to weigh a court letter, an eviction or a missed prescription against a monthly saving. Anything with a legal, housing or health consequence is excluded from the list mechanically, always counted into your floor, and shown in its own block with the reason. If one of those lines is genuinely unpayable, that is a conversation with the person you owe it to — and page 9 of the print pack is for writing that conversation down.
How is the order decided, and can I argue with it?
Consequence first, then amount. Everything you would simply be without comes before anything with a fee attached, and that comes before anything that touches your credit record; within each band the biggest saving comes first. The rule is printed on the sheet next to the list it produced. The tier names, their weights and which tiers are protected all live in ordinary yellow cells on Settings, and your own Keep / Pause / Cancel decision always overrides the order — the two are shown side by side so you can see exactly where you disagree with it.
Does the runway count my pension?
No, and that is deliberate. Every holding is marked reachable now, within a month, or locked and only reachable at a penalty. A runway is measured in months, so a thirty-day notice account arrives long before it matters and counts; a pension does not, and counting it would give you a comforting figure that is not true. Locked money is listed with its own subtotal so you have not forgotten it either.
Where does the "money runs out on" date come from?
Money you can reach, divided by what you are short each month, gives a number of months. That many whole calendar months are added to today's date, and the part-month at 30.44 days, which is 365.25 divided by twelve. The sheet prints that sentence so you never have to guess what was rounded. Today's date is a cell rather than a live clock, so the figures hold still while you work — change it when you come back to the file.
What if I do not know when I will be able to work again?
Leave the four re-entry boxes empty. The Re-entry sheet says so plainly instead of inventing a plan, and everything before it — the runway, the cut order, the survival budget — still works and is the part you need first. Fill them in when you have an idea, and change them as often as you like; the plan and the four dates follow.
The plan shows me running short. What then?
It shows you by how much and in which month, and then gives three levers, each one line of arithmetic: the restart income that would break even at once, the monthly step-up that would close the gap inside a number of months you set, and how far the floor would have to come down instead. None of them is easy and the workbook does not pretend otherwise, but each is a number you can aim at or take to a conversation.
Does it work in Google Sheets?
Yes. Upload the .xlsx to Google Drive and choose File → Save as Google Sheets. Every formula is audited against a banned list before the file ships — no XLOOKUP, no FILTER, no dynamic arrays, no macros, no add-ins, no external links — so the runway, the cut order and the dates come out identical in Excel 2016 and later, Excel 365, Excel for Mac and Sheets. A one-page PDF in the download walks you through it.
Is my currency supported?
Any of them. The currency symbol is a cell on Settings and it is printed into the column headings, so nothing in the file is fixed to one country. The 24-month plan starts from whatever month you set, and today's date is whatever you type.
Is the sample data real?
No — it is one fictional household, invented so that every number and chart is alive the moment you open the file: five places money is held, twenty-eight outgoings across nine groups, eight of them protected, eighteen on the cut list, and a plan where going back to work part-time is what saves them rather than the cutting. The Read me lists the exact ranges to clear, and it takes about two minutes.
Do I need to fill in all of it?
No. Three inputs give you the runway, and Start Here says so. Everything after that is optional depth you can come back to on a better day — the file is built on the assumption that you will not do it all in one sitting, and nothing breaks if you leave half of it blank.
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Personal-use license for one household. No resale or redistribution. Delivered as a ZIP download immediately after payment. No physical item will be shipped.
