--- title: "50/30/20 Rule Budget Calculator | Cedar Ledger" description: "Split after-tax income into needs, wants and savings with the 50/30/20 rule, then compare what you really spend. Free and private, in your browser." url: https://cedarledger.bond/ --- # 50/30/20 budget calculator Split your after-tax income into needs, wants and savings the way Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi lay it out in *All Your Worth*, then see how what you really spend compares. ## Statement After-tax income $4,000.00 a month · $48,000.00 a year | Bucket | Share | Target | Actual | Difference | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Needs | 50% | $2,000.00 | $2,250.00 | $250.00 over | | Wants | 30% | $1,200.00 | $1,150.00 | $50.00 under | | Savings & debt | 20% | $800.00 | $600.00 | $200.00 short | | Total | 100% | $4,000.00 | $4,000.00 | | Guideline Your spending - Needs 50% → 56.3% - Wants 30% → 28.7% - Savings & debt 20% → 15% - Needs: 56.3% of income, 6.3 points above the 50% guideline. - Wants: 28.7% of income, 1.3 points below the 30% guideline. - Savings & debt: 15% of income, 5 points below the 20% guideline. ## How the 50/30/20 rule works In *All Your Worth* (2005), bankruptcy scholar Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi suggest dividing after-tax income into three parts: 50% for must-haves, 30% for wants and 20% for savings. The calculator turns your income into those three monthly targets, then lines up what you actually spend beside them. - **Needs** are the bills you would have to keep paying even if you lost your income: rent or mortgage, utilities, basic groceries, insurance, transport to work, child care and the minimum payments on debts. - **Wants** are everything you could stop tomorrow: eating out, streaming, holidays, hobbies, upgrades. - **Savings & debt** is money that improves your future position: an emergency fund, retirement saving, and debt payments above the minimum. Start from take-home pay, after income tax and anything deducted at source. If you are paid every two weeks or every week, choose that and the calculator converts it to a monthly figure (26 or 52 pay days spread over 12 months), so a $2,000 fortnightly pay becomes $4,333.33 a month. **Worked example.** With $4,000 a month the targets are $2,000 for needs, $1,200 for wants and $800 for savings. Spending $2,250 on needs puts that bucket 6.3 points above its 50% share; the statement marks it in red ink and shows that savings are $200 short of the target. The rule is a yardstick, not a verdict: where housing costs are high, needs often take more than half, and the useful question is which bucket the gap comes from. ## Sources - Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, [*All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan*](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/All-Your-Worth/Elizabeth-Warren/9780743269889) (Free Press, 2005): the three-way split into must-haves, wants and savings. - Federal Trade Commission, [Make a Budget worksheet](https://consumer.gov/budget) at consumer.gov: listing a month's income and expenses to see where money goes. ## Index of the ledger Four more pages of the same book, each saved only in your browser. - [Monthly budget planner](https://cedarledger.bond/monthly-budget-planner/): Fo. 2 Income and expense lines with planned and actual columns, totals by group, CSV export and a print-ready page. - [Net worth calculator](https://cedarledger.bond/net-worth-calculator/): Fo. 3 What you own minus what you owe, by group, with dated snapshots that build a history. - [Envelope budget planner](https://cedarledger.bond/envelope-budget-planner/): Fo. 4 Digital cash envelopes: allocate, record each purchase, see what is left, carry balances into the next period. - [Spending by category](https://cedarledger.bond/spending-by-category/): Fo. 5 Drop in a bank statement CSV and get totals and a chart by category, sorted by your own keyword rules. ## Recommended Two free services for the online side of keeping your money in order. Disposable email · no sign-up ### CleanTempMail Budget templates, price-alert sites and store loyalty schemes often ask for an email address before they give you anything. CleanTempMail gives you a free temporary inbox straight away: no sign-up, a random or custom address on hundreds of domains, and messages deleted automatically after 3 days. Your real inbox stays for the bills that matter. [Open a temporary inbox](https://cleantempmail.com/) Disposable cloud browser · domain lookups ### WebTraceCheck About to type card details into a shop or "money-saving" site you have never used? WebTraceCheck's free DNS and domain lookup shows the details behind its domain, and its disposable cloud browser opens unfamiliar links on an isolated desktop that is deleted after each session. Nothing to install, with free time every day. [Check a site with WebTraceCheck](https://webtracecheck.com/) ## Questions **Should the 50/30/20 rule use income before or after tax?** After tax. The book works from take-home pay: what reaches your account after income tax and other deductions. If your pension contributions come out of your pay before it arrives, you are already saving that money, so you can add it to the savings figure and to your income to see the full picture. **Do debt payments count as needs or savings?** Both, split by purpose. The minimum payment you must make on a loan or card is a need, because missing it has consequences. Anything you pay above the minimum to clear the balance sooner goes in the savings and debt bucket, since it improves your future position just as saving does. **My needs are well over 50%. Is the rule useless for me?** No, it still shows where the pressure is. Open "Change the split" and try a version that matches your situation, such as 60/30/10, then compare it with your real spending. The calculator only does the arithmetic; how to close a gap depends on your circumstances. **Is anything I type saved or sent anywhere?** No. The figures on this page are worked out in your browser and are not stored or sent anywhere. Only your currency choice and light or dark theme are remembered, in this browser's local storage.