Budget Tracker
Add your income and outgoings. Everything saves in your browser, so it is still here when you come back — and it never leaves your device.
Income
Expenses
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- Savings rate
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The 50/30/20 check
The 50/30/20 rule
Put 50% of take-home pay towards needs, 30% towards wants, and 20% towards savings and debt repayment. Popularised by Elizabeth Warren, its value is not precision but simplicity — it takes about five minutes to check and immediately shows which of the three is out of proportion. Needs are things you cannot easily stop paying: housing, food, utilities, transport, minimum debt payments. Wants are everything discretionary. In expensive cities the 50% needs target is often unreachable, and that is useful information rather than a failure.
Needs and wants are harder to separate than they look
The categorisation is where most budgets go wrong, usually in the direction of generosity.
| Expense | Need | Want |
|---|---|---|
| Rent or mortgage payment | ✓ | |
| Groceries | ✓ | |
| Restaurant meals and takeaway | ✓ | |
| Basic phone plan | ✓ | |
| Streaming subscriptions | ✓ | |
| Commuting costs | ✓ | |
| Minimum debt payments | ✓ | |
| Extra debt repayment | Counts as saving | |
| Gym membership | ✓ | |
| Insurance | ✓ |
A useful test: if you lost your income tomorrow, would you cancel it this week? If yes, it is a want.
Why budgets usually fail
- Irregular costs are forgotten. Car repairs, Christmas, annual insurance renewals. Divide each by twelve and treat it as a monthly line — this is the single biggest cause of a budget that works on paper and not in life.
- They are too detailed. Twenty categories tracked to the cent gets abandoned in three weeks. Six categories you actually maintain beats a perfect system you do not.
- No room for anything enjoyable. A budget with zero discretionary spending fails for the same reason crash diets do.
- Nobody looks at it again. Fifteen minutes once a month is enough, and it is the part that matters most.
Where the 20% should go first
Not all saving is equally valuable, and the order matters more than the amount.
- A small emergency buffer — around $1,000, or one month of essentials. Enough to stop a broken boiler becoming credit card debt.
- Any employer pension match. An instant 50–100% return that nothing else competes with.
- High-interest debt. Clearing a 22% credit card is a guaranteed 22% return.
- A full emergency fund — three to six months of essential spending.
- Long-term investing, in tax-sheltered accounts where available.
How to use the Budget Tracker
- Add your monthly income after tax.
- Add your expenses, tagging each as a need, a want, or saving.
- Read the leftover figure and check the three bars against their targets.
- Everything saves automatically in your browser and is here next time.
Frequently asked questions
Is my budget data private?
Yes. It is stored in your own browser using local storage and never sent anywhere. Clearing your browser data removes it, and it does not sync between devices.
Should I budget on gross or net income?
Net — what actually reaches your account after tax and deductions. The 50/30/20 split is defined against take-home pay.
What if my needs are more than 50%?
Extremely common in high-cost cities. Treat it as information: it means either housing costs need to come down or income needs to go up, since there is no way to save meaningfully when needs consume 70% of income.
How do I handle irregular expenses?
Divide the annual cost by twelve and enter it as a monthly line. A $600 annual insurance premium becomes $50 a month, so it is never a surprise.
Does leftover money count as savings?
In the 50/30/20 check above, yes — anything not spent counts towards the savings bar, since that is effectively what it is.
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Last reviewed September 4, 2026. Results are estimates for general information only.