Enter your take-home pay and we’ll tell you how much to spend on needs and wants, and how much to save. If the rule doesn’t fit, change the percentages.
Budget Pop
It’s a way to split the money you bring home each month: 50% for essentials, 30% for things you want and 20% for savings or paying off debt. Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi popularized it in their 2005 book All Your Worth.
Needs: housing, utilities, groceries, transport and insurance. Wants: restaurants, extra clothes, trips and subscriptions. Savings and debt: what you set aside and any extra payments to clear debt sooner.
With high rent, 50% won’t stretch far enough. Try 60/20/20 or 70/20/10. What matters is ending up with a savings figure you can hit every month.
Start with what you can, even 5%, and raise it little by little. Change the percentages and see how the split looks.
The regular payment is a need. Extra payments on top of it go under savings and debt.
How the 50/30/20 budget rule works, what goes in each part, examples on $3,000 a month and what to do if the numbers don’t work where you live.
Work out what comes in, separate your fixed costs, split the rest by category and review it at the end of the month. With a worked example on $3,000 a month.
Split your income across categories and see what’s left. Ready to print.
Add up rent, bills and subscriptions to see what they cost each month and year.
How much do you need to set aside each month to reach your goal? Find out here.
Work out how big your safety net should be and how long it’ll take to build.
When could you live off your investments, and how much capital do you need?
See how much your money grows when you invest it for years.
Download Budget Pop for free and log your first expense in a minute.
