Budget Calculator

Use this budget calculator to turn your take-home income into a monthly number, add common spending categories, and see what is left over (or how short you are). You can also compare your spending to a budgeting rule like 50/30/20, 60/30/10, or your own custom split.

Take-home income amount (USD)

Income frequency

Housing (USD per month)

Utilities and phone/internet (USD per month)

Food (groceries + eating out) (USD per month)

Transportation (USD per month)

Debt payments (USD per month)

Savings and investing (USD per month)

Advanced options

Rule comparison

Budget rule (for comparison)

Custom Needs percent (percent)

Custom Wants percent (percent)

Custom Savings and debt percent (percent)

More categories

Health and medical (USD per month)

Childcare and education (USD per month)

Subscriptions and entertainment (USD per month)

Other spending (USD per month)

Sinking funds for irregular bills (USD per month)

Plan vs actual (optional)

Mode

Actual take-home income amount (USD)

Actual housing (USD per month)

Actual utilities and phone/internet (USD per month)

Actual food (USD per month)

Actual transportation (USD per month)

Actual debt payments (USD per month)

Actual savings and investing (USD per month)

Actual health and medical (USD per month)

Actual childcare and education (USD per month)

Actual subscriptions and entertainment (USD per month)

Actual other spending (USD per month)

Actual sinking funds (USD per month)

Monthly take-home income (converted)

–

This is the base number used for all totals and comparisons.

Total monthly expenses (excluding debt payments)

–

Use this to see your current spending level.

Total monthly savings and debt payoff

–

This shows how much you are putting toward future goals and paying down debt.

Money left after expenses and savings (surplus or shortfall)

–

If negative, you are short by that amount and need to cut spending, raise income, or reduce savings/debt targets for now.

Needs total (estimated)

–

This is used to compare to the Needs guideline amount.

Wants total (estimated)

–

This is used to compare to the Wants guideline amount.

Savings and debt total (rule bucket)

–

This is used to compare to the Savings/Debt guideline amount.

Needs target amount (from rule)

–

If your Needs total is above this, your fixed essentials may be high for this guideline.

Wants target amount (from rule)

–

If your Wants total is above this, discretionary spending may be crowding out goals.

Savings and debt target amount (from rule)

–

If your Savings/Debt total is below this, you may be under-saving or only paying minimums.

Needs difference (actual minus target)

–

Positive means over the guideline; negative means under.

Wants difference (actual minus target)

–

Positive means over the guideline; negative means under.

Savings and debt difference (actual minus target)

–

Positive means above the guideline; negative means below.

Notes and warnings

–

These are hints, not judgment. A negative leftover means the plan is not currently affordable.

Did we solve your problem today?

How to use our Budget Calculator

Enter your take-home income amount (the money you actually receive after taxes and paycheck deductions).
Choose your income frequency so the calculator can convert it to a monthly take-home income.
Fill in your monthly costs for Housing, Utilities, Food, Transportation, Debt payments (minimums), and Savings and investing.
Open Advanced options if you want to add more categories like Health/medical, Childcare/education, Subscriptions/entertainment, Other spending, or Sinking funds for irregular bills.
In Advanced options, pick a Budget rule for comparison (50/30/20, 60/30/10, or Custom).
If you choose Custom, enter your Needs, Wants, and Savings and debt percents so they add up to 100.
If you use Mode = Plan vs actual, enter both your planned and actual amounts for each category you use.
Click Calculate to see your totals, your leftover (surplus or shortfall), and how far over/under each rule bucket is.

Definitions

Take-home income (net income): Money you actually receive after taxes and paycheck deductions, used as the starting point for most budgeting rules.[1]

Monthly income (converted): Your income turned into a monthly number based on pay frequency (weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, monthly, or annual).

Expenses: Money you spend on living costs like housing, utilities, food, transportation, health/medical, childcare/education, subscriptions/entertainment, and other spending.

Savings and debt payoff: Money you put toward goals (saving/investing) plus debt payments and sinking funds.

Sinking fund: Money you set aside each month for irregular bills (like car repairs or yearly fees) so they do not surprise you.

Needs / Wants / Savings-Debt: Three buckets used by rules like 50/30/20 to compare your spending to a guideline.[2]

Target: The guideline dollar amount for a bucket (monthly income times the bucket percent).

Delta (difference): Actual minus target. Positive means over the guideline for Needs/Wants, and above the guideline for Savings-Debt.

Methodology

What this calculator does

It (1) converts your take-home income to a monthly amount, (2) totals your entered categories, (3) computes your monthly surplus or shortfall, and (4) compares your spending to a budgeting rule (50/30/20, 60/30/10, or Custom).[1][2]

Income conversion to monthly

monthly_income = income_amount * freq_to_month_factor

Frequency factors used:

Weekly: freq_to_month_factor = 52 / 12

Biweekly: freq_to_month_factor = 26 / 12

Semimonthly: freq_to_month_factor = 2

Monthly: freq_to_month_factor = 1

Annually: freq_to_month_factor = 1 / 12

Totals (what gets added together)

Blank optional money fields in Advanced options are treated as 0. All money inputs are in USD per month.

total_expenses = housing + utilities + food + transportation + health_insurance_medical + childcare_education + subscriptions_entertainment + other_spending

total_savings_debt = debt_payments + savings_contributions + sinking_funds_monthly

Leftover (surplus or shortfall)

net_leftover = monthly_income - total_expenses - total_savings_debt

If net_leftover is negative, your current plan spends more than your monthly take-home income. The calculator still shows the negative number so you can see the size of the gap.

Rule targets (50/30/20, 60/30/10, or custom)

For rule comparison, the calculator uses three buckets (Needs, Wants, Savings-Debt) similar to popular budgeting guidelines.[2]

needs_target = monthly_income * needs_percent / 100

wants_target = monthly_income * wants_percent / 100

savings_target = monthly_income * savings_percent / 100

Custom rule validation (must be feasible): the three custom percents must each be between 0 and 100, cannot be blank, and must sum to 100 within 0.01.

How categories map to rule buckets

This mapping is fixed so the comparison stays predictable:

needs_total = housing + utilities + transportation + health_insurance_medical + childcare_education + food

wants_total = subscriptions_entertainment + other_spending

savings_debt_total_bucket = debt_payments + savings_contributions + sinking_funds_monthly

Note: Food includes groceries plus eating out in the default inputs, so your Needs bucket may look higher if a lot of your food spending is restaurants.

Deltas vs targets (over or under the guideline)

needs_delta = needs_total - needs_target

wants_delta = wants_total - wants_target

savings_delta = savings_debt_total_bucket - savings_target

Interpretation: A positive needs_delta or wants_delta means you are over that guideline. A negative savings_delta means you are below the guideline for saving/investing and debt payoff.

Input rules and edge cases handled

Income amount must be greater than 0. Money fields must be 0 or more. Currency fields allow correctly grouped thousands, such as 1,000 or 1 000. Use a decimal point for decimals. Results are only shown after you click Calculate, and they are cleared when you change an input so you do not mistake old results for new ones.

Related Calculators