Needs housing, utilities, essentials
Wants lifestyle & discretionary
Savings savings, investments & extra debt payoff
Enter your monthly income to see your budget.
| Take-home income | — |
|---|---|
| Needs | — |
| Wants | — |
| Savings | — |
| Total spent | — |
| Left over | — |
| Bucket | Target | You |
|---|---|---|
| Needs | 50% | — |
| Wants | 30% | — |
| Savings | 20% | — |
Enter your take-home (after-tax) income and typical monthly amounts. The 50/30/20 split treats housing, utilities, groceries, transport, insurance and minimum debt payments as needs; dining, shopping and other as wants; and savings, investments and extra debt payoff as the 20%. It's a guideline for comparison, not financial advice.
How to build a monthly budget
A budget answers one question: does the money coming in cover the money going out, with something left to save? Start with your take-home income — what actually lands in your account after tax — then list your regular monthly expenses. The calculator subtracts spending from income to show your surplus or deficit, and reports your savings rate: the share of income you put toward savings and investments. A positive number left over is the goal; a negative one means it's time to trim a category.
The 50/30/20 rule
The 50/30/20 rule is a quick sanity check on where your money goes. It suggests roughly 50% of take-home pay for needs (housing, utilities, groceries, transport, insurance, minimum debt payments), 30% for wants (dining out, shopping, subscriptions), and 20% for savings and extra debt repayment. The calculator groups your entries into those three buckets and shows your actual percentages next to the targets. Treat it as a starting point — in a high-cost city, needs often run well above 50%, which just means wants or savings have to give.
Turning the number into a plan
If you're over budget, the fastest wins are usually the biggest categories — housing and transport — followed by the flexible ones like dining and shopping. If you have a surplus, decide where it goes before it disappears: an emergency fund, extra debt payoff, or investing. To check your take-home figure, use the Paycheck Calculator; to project what consistent saving becomes over time, see the Compound Interest Calculator or the Investment Calculator. Everything here is computed in your browser and nothing is stored.