Enter your income and monthly costs, see what is left over and how you compare with the 50/30/20 rule.
A monthly budget subtracts everything you plan to spend or save from your income after tax, and the remainder is what is left over. With an income of 4,000.00 and planned costs of 3,700.00, 300.00 is left over each month, or 3,600.00 over a year. The page adds the amounts you enter into three buckets: needs, wants, and savings and debt payoff. It then shows each bucket as a share of income, and your savings rate, which is the savings bucket divided by income. Leave a box empty if it does not apply. If your costs are higher than your income, the page shows by how much you are over budget instead of a left-over amount.
The 50/30/20 rule splits after-tax income into 50% for needs, 30% for wants and 20% for savings and debt repayment. It was popularised by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi in the 2005 book All Your Worth. On a 4,000.00 income the targets are 2,000.00 for needs, 1,200.00 for wants and 800.00 for savings. The table on this page shows your planned amount for each bucket next to its target, and says whether you are over or under. It is a guideline, not a law: in a city with high rent, needs may take more than half, and that can still be a sound budget if the other buckets are balanced.
Needs are costs you cannot easily skip: rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries, transport to work, insurance and health costs, and the minimum payments on debts. Wants are the choices on top: eating out, entertainment, subscriptions and shopping. Savings and debt payoff holds money you put aside or invest, and any debt payment above the minimum. Minimum debt payments sit in needs and extra debt payments sit in savings, because the minimum is owed and the extra is a choice. Put a yearly bill into the budget by dividing it by 12, so a 600.00 yearly insurance premium is 50.00 a month.
The page works with one month at a time and uses the income you type, so irregular income, such as freelance work, needs an average. It does not calculate tax, so enter pay after tax. It does not track actual spending, categorise bank transactions or remember your numbers: nothing you type is stored, and reloading the page resets the form. Amounts have no currency symbol, so it works for any currency. This is an estimate for planning, not financial advice. With no income at all, enter 0: the page shows your monthly costs as the shortfall, and the percentage figures show as unavailable because they would divide by zero.
It splits income after tax into 50% needs, 30% wants and 20% savings and debt repayment. On 3,000.00 a month that is 1,500.00 for needs, 900.00 for wants and 600.00 for savings.
Savings rate is the money you save or put toward extra debt payments divided by income after tax. Saving 500.00 from a 4,000.00 income is 500 / 4,000 = 12.5%. The 50/30/20 rule aims for 20%.
After tax. The 50/30/20 rule is defined on after-tax income, and the money you can actually spend is what reaches your account. If your pay is taken before tax, subtract tax first.
Divide it by 12 and enter it under the right category. A 1,200.00 yearly car insurance premium is 100.00 a month under insurance and health. Doing this keeps the monthly picture honest.
That is common where rent is high. For example 2,550.00 of needs on 4,000.00 income is 63.8%. The page shows how far over the 50% target you are so you can decide whether to cut wants or raise income, rather than judging it as wrong.
No. The values stay in your browser tab while it is open and are not stored or sent anywhere. Reloading resets the form to the example, so write down your figures if you want to keep them.