Monthly budget calculator
A month of spending added up against take-home pay: what is left over, where it goes, and how the split sits beside the 50/30/20 rule of thumb.
$
After tax — what lands in your account.
Left over each month
$200.00
$2,400 over a year · 4.4% of take-home pay with no line of its own.
- Needs
- $2,950 · 66%
- Wants
- $800 · 18%
- Savings and debt
- $550 · 12%
- Total out
- $4,300
Where the month goes
- Needs 66%
- Wants 18%
- Savings and debt 12%
Beside the 50/30/20 rule
| Bucket | Yours | Rule | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Needs 50% | $2,950 | $2,250 | +$700 |
| Wants 30% | $800 | $1,350 | −$550 |
| Savings and debt 20% | $550 | $900 | −$350 |
This adds up the figures you type; it knows nothing else about you. Use take-home pay, not salary — the take-home pay calculator estimates it. Which bucket a bill belongs in is your call. 50/30/20 is a rule of thumb from a 2005 book, not a target we set: it does not know your rent, your city or your debts. Costs that do not come monthly — annual insurance, repairs, gifts — are only counted if you add a monthly share of them. Not financial advice.
Questions
- What is the 50/30/20 rule?
- A rule of thumb that splits take-home pay into 50% needs, 30% wants and 20% savings and debt repayment. It comes from the 2005 book All Your Worth by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi. It is a yardstick for looking at a budget, not a law of money: where rent is high, needs alone can pass 50% without anything being wrong with the budget.
- Should I use my salary or my take-home pay?
- Take-home pay — the amount that reaches your account after tax and payroll deductions. A budget built on gross salary plans to spend money that was never paid to you. If retirement contributions already come out of your pay before it arrives, they are not in your take-home figure, so do not add them again as a line.
- Where do debt payments go?
- The convention is that minimum payments are a need, because missing them has consequences, and anything paid above the minimum counts with savings, because it improves your position the same way saving does. The calculator has a line for each.
- What about bills that do not come every month?
- Divide the yearly amount by twelve and add it to the closest line. A budget that leaves out annual insurance, car repairs or gifts will show more left over than there really is.