Budget 50 30 20 Calculator

Optional. Health, disability and life insurance premiums your employer takes from your pay each month, before it reaches you. Leave it blank if there are none, and it counts as none. What you enter is added to the income counted and counted again as a need, so what is left does not change. Adding back the health premium is the rule All Your Worth states; adding back disability and life premiums is this model's extension, resting on a secondary summary of the book.

Optional. Your own contributions to a workplace retirement plan, taken from your pay each month before it reaches you. Leave it blank if there are none, and it counts as none. What you enter is added to the income counted and counted again as savings. This add-back is this model's extension rather than a rule verified in All Your Worth.

Optional. Any other cost you would keep paying if your income stopped: basic clothing, medical costs your insurance does not cover, support payments and other obligations. Leave it blank if there is nothing, and it counts as none. It is a need.

Optional. Anything else you choose to spend on rather than need: shopping, gifts, personal care beyond the basics. Leave it blank if there is nothing, and it counts as none. It is a want.

Optional. What you move out of take-home pay each month into savings, investments or a retirement account you fund yourself. Leave it blank if there is nothing, and it counts as none. Retirement money taken from pay before it reaches you goes on the pay slip line instead. It is savings.

Optional. Trips and holidays averaged to a month, which is a year's travel divided by twelve. Leave it blank if there is nothing, and it counts as none. It is a want.

Electricity, gas, water, trash collection, phone and internet, a month. Average a bill that changes with the seasons over a year before entering it. It is a need.

Optional. Television, streaming, music and memberships such as a gym, a month. Leave it blank if there is nothing, and it counts as none. It is a want.

What getting around costs a month: the car payment, fuel, upkeep, parking and transit fares. Car insurance goes on the insurance line instead, so it is not counted twice. It is a need.

What reaches your bank account in a month after tax and after everything your employer takes from pay. Average pay that varies over a few months before entering it. It is the base the three targets are measured against, together with any of the three pay slip lines that you fill in. The Take-Home Pay (Paycheck) Estimator in this set works it out from a salary, and its monthly figure enters here to the nearest 50; a figure below 50 enters as 50.

Optional. What your employer pays into your retirement plan each month, on top of your pay. Leave it blank if there is none, and it counts as none. What you enter is added to the income counted and counted again as savings, which is the instruction All Your Worth gives, because it builds your savings even though it never reaches your account.

Optional. Outings, events, hobbies and games, a month, leaving out the subscriptions that have their own line. Leave it blank if there is nothing, and it counts as none. It is a want.

Optional. What you pay each month for childcare, daycare or preschool. Leave it blank if you have none, and it counts as none. It is a need.

Optional. Restaurants, takeout and coffee bought out, a month. Leave it blank if there is nothing, and it counts as none. It is a want; food bought to eat at home is the need.

Optional. What you pay on debts each month above the minimum payments. Leave it blank if there is nothing, and it counts as none. Paying debt down faster than you must counts as savings, which every source on the rule agrees on.

Optional. Insurance you pay for yourself each month rather than through your pay: health cover not taken from pay, car, renters or home, and life insurance. Leave it blank if every policy comes out of your pay slip, and it counts as none. Premiums taken from pay belong on the pay slip line instead, where they are also added back into the income counted. It is a need.

Optional. The smallest payments you must make each month on credit cards, student loans and any other debt that is not the mortgage or the car. Leave it blank if you have no such debt, and it counts as none. This model counts these minimums as needs; All Your Worth, the book the rule comes from, leaves card debt out of its needs and counts paying a card down as saving, so for card minimums the two disagree. Anything you pay above the minimums goes on the extra debt line and counts as savings.

Food bought to eat at home, a month. Restaurant meals and takeout are wants and have their own line. It is a need.

What you pay each month to live where you live: rent, or the whole mortgage payment with property tax and home insurance. It is a need, and usually the largest one. It is also one of the two amounts the needs-share table varies, which is why it is asked for even when it is nothing.

The values down the side of the table: take-home pay, in equal steps either side of yours and never below a floor away from the middle, so every row has an income to divide by. The middle entry is your own take-home pay. Read a row to hold the pay fixed and vary the housing cost.

Machinery, and NOT an input. Each take-home pay from the side of the table is put here while the table is filled; the rest of the time it mirrors your take-home pay. Change the take-home pay, never this: the axis is built from it, so editing the mirror moves the axis while the table is filled and every entry comes out meaningless.

The body of the needs-share table: the needs share worked out again for every pairing of the two axes, with every other line held where you entered it. One hundred and twenty-one entries, each the whole split run again. An entry above 100 percent is a budget whose needs alone take more than the income. It is a component of the table rather than a result on its own.

The values across the top of the table: the housing cost, in equal steps either side of yours and never below a floor. The middle entry is your own housing cost. Read a column to hold the housing cost fixed and vary the pay; a low housing cost makes the lowest entries repeat at the floor, which is the table running out of room rather than an error.

Machinery, and NOT an input. The same for the housing cost: each value from the top of the table is put here while the table is filled, and the rest of the time it mirrors your housing cost.

Machinery. The formula the table recomputes has to sit in its top-left corner, where it means nothing to a reader, so it is hidden. It holds the needs share.

What is left with no line against it, as a share of the income counted. The four shares always add to 100 percent.

Wants as a share of the income counted. The rule's target is 30 percent; below it is room, not a shortfall.

Wants less their target, in dollars a month. Below zero means spending less on wants than the rule allows, which is not a problem.

Half of the income counted, in dollars a month: the most the rule allows for needs. It is a ceiling, not an average; the book behind the rule calls needs under 35 percent of income a safety zone.

A fifth of the income counted, in dollars a month: the least the rule asks you to save, counting debt paid down faster than you must and retirement money taken from pay.

Three tenths of the income counted, in dollars a month. Wants have a target rather than a limit, so spending less than this is not a shortfall.

Savings less the floor, in dollars a month. Below zero is how far saving falls short of a fifth of the income.

The income the three targets are measured against: take-home pay plus anything your pay slip sets aside for insurance premiums and retirement, and your employer's retirement contribution. With those three lines blank it is simply your take-home pay.

The income at which today's needs would be exactly half of it, in dollars a month. It holds needs where they are, and needs tend to rise with income, so read it as the least income that would bring them inside the ceiling, not as a plan.

The income counted less needs, wants and savings. It always equals take-home pay less every line paid out of it, because each pay slip line is counted once as income and once as spending. Money with no line against it is usually spent without a plan; below zero, the lines entered add up to more than comes in.

Every need you entered added up: housing, utilities, groceries, transportation, the insurance you pay yourself, minimum debt payments, childcare, other needs, and premiums taken from pay. The Emergency Fund Target calculator in this set asks for this figure as its essential spending, and takes it from 500 up to 28,000, to the nearest 5; a needs total below 500 enters there as 500.

Everything you entered that builds savings: what you save from take-home pay, debt payments above the minimums, and the two retirement amounts taken from or added to your pay.

Every want you entered added up: dining out, entertainment, subscriptions, travel and other wants.

Needs less the ceiling, in dollars a month. Above zero is how far needs run over half the income; below zero is room to spare under it.

Savings as a share of the income counted, the pay slip add-backs included. The rule asks for at least 20 percent. With the three pay slip lines blank it is also the share of take-home pay saved, which the Cost of Living Comparison calculator in this set asks for, up to 50 percent and to the nearest whole percent; with them filled the two are different figures.

What saving would have to rise by each month to reach a fifth of the income counted, and nothing once it does.

Reads OK, or says why the inputs cannot be answered or why the budget deserves a second look. Needs above half the income are the verdict's finding, not a warning.

Needs as a share of the income counted, which All Your Worth calls the Must-Have score. At most 50 percent meets the rule, and under 35 percent is the book's safety zone. This is the figure the needs-share table varies.

Which band the needs share falls in: inside the 35 percent safety zone, within the 50 percent ceiling, or above it. Needs above half the income are common rather than a sign of a mistake, which is why this is reported as a finding and not raised as a warning.