50/30/20 rule calculator
The 50/30/20 rule splits your take-home pay three ways: 50% to needs, 30% to wants and 20% to savings and debt. Enter your income for your exact numbers, then add what you actually spend to see where your month differs.
Use what lands in your account after tax, not your salary before it.
Rent, groceries, utilities, insurance, transport, minimum debt payments
Eating out, entertainment, shopping, subscriptions, travel
Emergency fund, retirement, goals, extra debt payments
Compare with what you spend now
Optional. Enter roughly what goes to each group in a typical month.
Turn it into a full budget
Break each group into categories in the free budget template — it rebalances to 50/30/20 in one click and exports to a spreadsheet.
Track it in Wally
Wally can set up a 50/30/20 budget for you and track your spending against needs, wants and savings as the month goes.
Wally is a free budgeting app for iOS and Android — no subscription, no bank connection required. See how it works.
What counts as a need, a want or savings
Needs are the bills you have to pay to live and work: rent or mortgage, groceries, utilities, insurance, transport and minimum debt payments. Wants are everything you choose — eating out, streaming, shopping, holidays, upgrades. Savings covers your emergency fund, retirement and goal savings, plus any debt payments above the minimum.
The test for a need is whether you could stop paying it next month without serious consequences. Groceries are a need; the more expensive grocery store is a want.
When 50/30/20 does not fit
If you live somewhere expensive, needs can easily run past 50% — and the honest answer is to shrink wants, not to pretend rent is smaller. A 60/20/20 split is still a good budget. If you have high-interest debt, a temporary 50/20/30 that pushes more towards repayment is better still.
Treat the rule as a starting shape. Its value is the comparison: once you see that wants are taking 40%, you know exactly where next month’s budget needs to change.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate the 50/30/20 rule?
Take your monthly take-home pay — what lands in your account after tax — and multiply it by 0.5 for needs, 0.3 for wants and 0.2 for savings. On $4,000 a month that is $2,000 for needs, $1,200 for wants and $800 for savings and extra debt payments.
Is the 50/30/20 rule based on gross or net income?
Net — your take-home pay after tax. If you have retirement contributions or health insurance taken out of your pay, some people add those back and count them as savings and needs respectively; either approach works as long as you are consistent.
Do debt payments count as needs or savings?
Minimum payments are needs, because you have to make them. Anything you pay above the minimum counts towards the 20% savings group, since it improves your net worth the same way saving does.
Is there an app that budgets with the 50/30/20 rule?
Yes — Wally, a free budgeting app for iOS and Android, can set up a 50/30/20 budget and track your spending against each group. It does not connect to your bank; you add transactions manually or import them from a CSV.