Free calculator
The 50/30/20 budget calculator.
Type your monthly take-home pay to see how much goes to needs, wants and savings. Change the split if 50/30/20 does not fit your life.
Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent or saved.
What lands in your account after tax and deductions.
Put aside for savings each month
$800
Out of $4,000 take-home pay. That is $9,600 a year toward your savings.
- Needs · 50%
$2,000
- Wants · 30%
$1,200
- Savings · 20%
$800
How this is worked out
- Works on net (take-home) pay for one month.
- Your split always adds up to 100%. Moving one slider shares the difference between the other two.
- The categories are a guide. Put each expense where it honestly belongs for you.
Want this number every day, without the math?
Balance sorts most purchases into categories for you (known merchants plus your own rules) and alerts you in the app at 80% of a budget, so the split holds all month.
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50/30/20 questions
A simple way to split take-home pay: about 50% for needs (rent, groceries, bills, transport), 30% for wants (eating out, hobbies, trips) and 20% for savings and paying down debt.
Net pay, the amount that actually lands in your account. Taxes and anything your employer already deducts are not part of the split.
That is common with high rent. Change the split to something you can keep, for example 60/25/15, and look for the one or two biggest needs you can lower over time.
If they are deducted from your payslip before you get paid, they are already saved and are not part of your net pay. The 20% here is savings on top of that.