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Household budget calculator

Put in what lands in your account each month. Move the sliders until every euro has a job, then split bills with a partner and see what each of you pays.

Leave at 0 if it's just you
Start from a rule
Needs
25% ·
Rent or mortgage, building fees, home insurance
7% ·
Electricity, gas, water, internet, phone
10% ·
Food and household supplies
8% ·
Fuel, public transport, car costs
0% ·
Minimum payments on loans and cards
Wants
20% ·
Restaurants, hobbies, trips, gifts
10% ·
Clothes, subscriptions, small surprises
Saving
10% ·
Until it covers 3–6 months of needs
10% ·
Long-term money you don't touch

Total monthly take-home pay

The link contains your numbers. Nothing is saved on any server.

My money plan

Next step: Save your budget, then use your essential costs to size your safety cushion: Emergency fund calculator →

How to use the calculator

  1. Enter Your take-home pay: what actually lands in your account each month after tax and social contributions, not your gross salary. If your income changes from month to month, use a low but realistic month.
  2. If you share a home, enter Partner's take-home pay. Leave it at 0 if it's just you; the sharing section only appears when both incomes are filled in.
  3. Pick a Currency and a starting rule under Start from a rule: 50/30/20 is the classic default, 60/20/20 suits high-rent cities, 70/20/10 keeps saving at 20% when money is tight by cutting wants.
  4. Drag each slider until it matches your real bills. Start with the needs you can't change this month (housing, bills, minimum debt payments), then decide the wants, and give whatever is left a saving job.
  5. Watch the line under the coloured bar. It tells you if part of your income has no job yet, or if you've planned more than you earn. Scale everything to 100% shrinks or grows every slider in proportion so the total fits exactly.
  6. With a partner, choose how to share the costs you pay together: By income, 50/50 or Custom, and tick the categories you really share. The results show what each of you puts in and keeps.
  7. Press Copy link to this budget to save or share the plan. The numbers live inside the link, not on a server.

What it's good for

  • Turns a vague feeling ("money disappears") into one picture you can change in seconds.
  • Makes saving a planned line in the budget instead of whatever happens to be left over.
  • Shows a fair split for couples with different incomes, which is the source of many money arguments.
  • Private by design: nothing is stored anywhere, and the share link only goes to people you send it to.

Where it falls short

  • It's a monthly plan, not a tracker. It can't tell you what you actually spent; for that you need your bank statements or a spending app.
  • Yearly costs (insurance, car tax, holidays, gifts) are easy to forget. Divide them by 12 and add them to the right slider, or the plan will look better than reality.
  • Percentage rules come from averages. If your rent alone is 45% of your income, no rule fits, and that's a housing problem, not a budgeting failure.
  • The warnings are rules of thumb, not judgements about your situation.

How it's calculated

Formula. Amount for a category = total take-home pay × the category's %. Shared costs by income: your share = your pay ÷ (your pay + your partner's pay).

Worked example. With 3,000 a month and the 50/30/20 preset, housing (25%) gets 750, groceries (10%) 300 and investing (10%) 300. If you earn 3,000 and your partner 2,000, you earn 60% of the total, so of 1,800 in shared costs you pay 1,080 and your partner 720.

Assumptions.

  • Percentages are of take-home pay, not gross salary.
  • "Scale everything to 100%" keeps each slider's share of the total and rounds to whole percents.

Formula checked 2026-10-23 and covered by automated tests. See the editorial policy and methodology.

Which rule should you start from?

The 50/30/20 rule comes from the book All Your Worth by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi: half for needs, 30% for wants, 20% for saving and paying down debt faster. It's a sensible default, but it was written for American incomes. Where rent eats a bigger part of pay, as in many European cities, 60/20/20 is more honest. If money is tight, 70/20/10 keeps saving at 20% by cutting wants first.

No rule is magic. What matters is that saving happens on purpose, not "if something is left at the end of the month", because usually nothing is.

Habits that make a budget stick

  • Pay yourself first. Set an automatic transfer to savings on payday. What you never see in your current account you don't miss.
  • Emergency fund before investing. Without a cushion, the first broken boiler forces you to sell investments at the worst moment or borrow.
  • Split shared costs by income when incomes differ. A strict 50/50 can leave the lower earner with almost nothing of their own. Paying in proportion to income means you both keep the same share of your pay.
  • Keep some personal money that needs no explanation. Most money fights in a couple are about small spending, not big decisions.
  • Review it every few months. A budget is a plan, not a promise. Change the sliders when life changes.

Questions

Do debt payments count as needs or savings?
Minimum payments are needs, because you must make them. Anything extra you pay to clear debt faster is saving: it's money working for your future.
What does "By income" mean exactly?
Each person pays the same share of the shared costs as their share of the total income. If you earn 3,000 and your partner 2,000, you earn 60% of the total, so you pay 60% of the shared bills.
How big should the emergency fund be?
Most guidance says 3 to 6 months of essential costs, more if your income is irregular. The emergency fund calculator works out your number and how long it takes to get there.
What should I invest in once the cushion is full?
That depends on you, and I can't tell you. Investing basics explains the options in plain words, and the compound interest calculator shows what time does to a monthly amount.

Sources · last checked

Formula: see "How it's calculated" above; tested against the worked example shown there.

Last reviewed

Education, not advice. I'm not a financial adviser and I don't know your situation. These tools show the maths behind common rules of thumb; check important decisions with a qualified professional. Full disclaimer.