Money / Budget
Monthly Budget Planner
Plan a monthly budget from your take-home pay, sort spending into needs, wants, and savings, compare it with the 50/30/20 rule, and download it as a spreadsheet.
Monthly Budget Planner: The planner adds up each group, shows what is left of your income or how far over it you are, and sets the totals next to the 50/30/20 guide: half of take-home pay for needs, 30% for wants, and 20% for savings and paying down debt. Yearly figures are the monthly ones times twelve. Runs 100% locally in your browser with zero server file uploads.
- Category
- Home & family tools
- Runs
- In your browser
- Cost
- Free · no sign-up
- Availability
- Ready to use
Runs entirely in your browser
Your budget is saved only in this browser.
Making a budget stick
Start from what you actually spend: a month or two of bank and card statements shows the real figures, which are often higher than guesses for food and subscriptions. Then decide the plan, and check it once a month against the statements.
Irregular costs, such as car repairs, annual insurance, and gifts, wreck budgets that only count monthly bills. Divide each yearly cost by twelve and set that aside as its own line; the gift budget planner helps with the holiday season.
When there is debt
Minimum debt payments belong with needs; anything extra counts towards the 20%. To see how quickly a given extra amount clears your debts, and which order saves the most interest, use the debt payoff calculator.
How to use it
- Enter your monthly income after tax.
- Fill in what you spend or plan to spend on each line, renaming, adding, or removing lines as you need.
- See what is left to assign and how it compares with 50/30/20, then download a CSV.
Privacy & limitations
Your budget is stored only in this browser and never uploaded. The CSV is created on your device.
Related tools
Frequently asked questions
What is the 50/30/20 rule?
A guideline from the book All Your Worth by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi: spend about 50% of take-home pay on needs such as housing, food, and minimum debt payments, 30% on wants, and put 20% into savings and extra debt repayment.
What counts as a need?
Things you must pay to live and work: housing, utilities, basic groceries, transport to work, insurance, childcare, and minimum payments on debts. Eating out, streaming, and upgrades are wants, even when they feel essential.
What if my needs are more than 50%?
That is common where housing is expensive. Use the split as a direction rather than a test: trim wants first, keep at least something going to savings, and look at the largest fixed costs when contracts come up for renewal.
Should I budget with gross or net income?
Net, what actually reaches your account after tax and deductions. If retirement contributions come out of your pay before it arrives, you can count them as savings on a separate line.
Free tool · runs in your browser · no account required