Budget Planner
Split monthly income into needs, wants, and savings — defaults to 50/30/20, adjust freely.
Written by Golam Rabbani, Founder & Lead Engineer
How to use this budget planner
- Enter your after-tax monthly income — what actually lands in your account.
- Adjust the three percentages — Needs, Wants, Savings/debt — so they total 100.
- The default is the 50/30/20 rule (50% needs, 30% wants, 20% savings).
- Pick your currency.
- Press Calculate to see the dollar (or chosen currency) allocation per bucket.
- Use Copy to save the split or Reset to clear all fields.
About this budget planner
The budget planner turns one monthly income figure into three bucket allocations: needs, wants, and savings/debt. The default split is the 50/30/20 rule popularised by Senator Elizabeth Warren — 50% needs (rent, utilities, groceries, minimum debt payments, insurance), 30% wants (eating out, hobbies, streaming), and 20% savings or extra debt repayment.
The formula is straightforward: bucket_amount = income × (bucket% ÷ 100). The tool refuses to calculate unless the three percentages add up to 100 — so any custom split (60/20/20, 70/20/10, etc.) still produces a clean total.
Worked example: after-tax monthly income 4,000 on the default 50/30/20 split. Needs = 4,000 × 0.50 = 2,000. Wants = 4,000 × 0.30 = 1,200. Savings/debt = 4,000 × 0.20 = 800. Total = 4,000.
This is a planning suggestion, not a verdict on your finances. Real budgets vary widely by city, household size, dependants, and debt load — high-cost cities often blow past 50% on needs alone. Use the result as a starting point and adjust the percentages to match your real expenses. Not financial advice.
FAQ
- What goes in each bucket?
- Needs: rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries, transport, insurance, minimum debt payments. Wants: dining out, streaming, hobbies, travel, upgraded versions of needs. Savings/debt: emergency fund, retirement, paying down debt above the minimum, investment contributions.
- Why does the tool insist on percentages summing to 100?
- If they don't, the buckets don't account for all your income, which makes the result meaningless. The tool checks the sum (with a tiny rounding tolerance) and asks you to fix it before calculating.
- Is 50/30/20 the right split for me?
- It is a sensible default, not a law. If you are aggressively paying down debt or saving for a house, raise the savings bucket. If your rent is unavoidably high, raise needs. The point of the tool is to make each adjustment explicit and to show the dollar impact.
- Should I use gross or after-tax income?
- After-tax. The 50/30/20 rule and its variants are based on the money you actually receive — tax is a fixed cost you don't budget around.
- Can I plan a weekly or yearly budget here instead?
- The tool is keyed to monthly numbers because that is how most bills are billed. Convert weekly income × ~4.33 or yearly income ÷ 12 to get a monthly figure before entering it.
- Is anything stored or sent to a server?
- No. All calculation runs in your browser; nothing is sent or saved. Closing the page clears every input.