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Car build budget worksheet
Build budgets rarely fail on the price of the headline part. They fail on everything that part turned out to need. This sheet has a row per line of spend and a column for the category it belongs to, so the parts that get forgotten have somewhere to be written down before they surprise you.
The sheet
7 columns · 14 blank rows
Build budget
Vehicle ______________________
| Item | Category | Stage | Estimated | Actual | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intercooler upgrade | Part | Stage 1 | 900.00 | 890.00 | Done | Needed new charge pipe clampsexample |
Print it for the glovebox, or open the CSV and keep it in a spreadsheet. Delete the example row.
What each column is for
Item
What you are buying or paying for, named the way you would say it out loud.
Intercooler upgrade
Category
Part, supporting part, consumable, tool, labor, downstream work, or contingency. The category is what stops a budget counting only the exciting half.
Part
Stage
Which part of the build this belongs to. Grouping by stage is what lets you stop at a sensible place.
Stage 1
Estimated
What you expect it to cost, written before you order. This is the number you will learn from.
900.00
Actual
What it came to. The gap between this and the estimate is the most useful thing on the sheet.
890.00
Status
Planned, ordered, or done. Tells you at a glance how much of the budget is already committed.
Done
Notes
What it turned out to need: the supporting part, the coding, the second trip to the parts store.
Needed new charge pipe clamps
Other templates
- Vehicle maintenance log template
One row per service. Date, odometer, work, parts, cost, who did it.
- Car mod list and build sheet template
Every modification with its part number, cost, and install date.
- Vehicle document checklist
The paperwork worth keeping, and when each piece gets asked for.
In the product
BuildBay plans the same thing per vehicle: planned mods ordered by what depends on what, with a running cost and the tools each job still needs.
Keep it in one place instead
A sheet works until it does not: the glovebox copy gets wet, the spreadsheet gets forgotten. BuildBay keeps the same fields per vehicle, with receipts and photos attached, private by default.