Budget Calculator

How to read your result

The headline number is your monthly surplus or deficit: total income minus total expenses, where expenses deliberately include debt repayments and planned savings — so a positive surplus is genuinely unassigned cash, not money already spoken for. Below it, five ratios put that number in context: savings rate, housing ratio, debt payment ratio, expense-to-income, and fixed-cost ratio, each against published planning guidelines shown on the page. The 100-point budget health score rolls all of that into one educational summary. Use the annual view to catch costs that look small monthly but add up over a year, and the insights cards to see which lever — cutting a category, raising income, or reducing a fixed cost — would move your result the most.

Budget formulas

Every irregular cost is first converted to a monthly equivalent, then the core identity is a simple subtraction — the ratios that follow all divide a monthly amount by monthly income.

Worked example

Take-home income 5,000; housing 1,300 plus utilities 200 gives a housing ratio of 30%; food 600, transportation 400, debt payments 300 (debt ratio 6%), planned savings 500 (savings rate 10%), other 450. Total expenses come to 3,750, leaving a surplus of 1,250 a month — 25% of income, or 15,000 a year. The potential savings rate, which adds that surplus to the planned contribution, is (500 + 1,250) ÷ 5,000 = 35%. The work left is assigning that surplus on purpose rather than letting it drift into miscellaneous spending.

Assumptions

• All amounts are converted to monthly equivalents: yearly ÷ 12, weekly × 52 ÷ 12, bi-weekly × 26 ÷ 12, one-time ÷ 12; annual = monthly × 12. Blank fields count as zero.
• Expenses include debt repayments and planned savings, so the surplus is genuinely unallocated money.
• Gross-income mode estimates take-home pay as gross × (1 − the single tax/deduction rate you enter).
• Currency selection affects formatting only — no country-specific tax, legal, or financial rules are applied.
• Fixed costs = housing & utilities (except repairs and streaming), debt payments, essential transportation, childcare/school commitments, and insurance.

Limitations

• A planning tool, not a tracker — it cannot see transactions or verify the numbers you enter.
• Irregular costs are averaged; actual months will deviate from the smooth plan.
• The health score is an educational summary with published thresholds — not a credit score, rating, or recommendation.
• No product recommendations, no guarantees, and no professional advice of any kind.

Frequently asked questions

Related calculators

Tools that build on the same money-in, money-out math:

• 50/30/20 Budget CalculatorSplit take-home pay into 50% needs, 30% wants, and 20% savings, compare your real spending, and test alternative ratios.
• Debt Payoff CalculatorSimulate up to 20 debts with snowball, avalanche, custom, or hybrid payoff order and find your debt-free date.
• Net Worth CalculatorBuild a personal balance sheet — quick or 78-line detailed — with liquid and tangible net worth and debt analysis.
• Savings CalculatorProject a savings balance or solve the deposit needed for a goal, with APR/APY, tax, and inflation.
• Salary & Take-Home Pay CalculatorEstimate take-home pay with sourced payroll models for the US, India, UK, Canada, and Australia, plus a net-to-gross solver.
• Financial Needs Pyramid CalculatorScore five layers of your financial foundation — survival, safety, support, growth, and freedom — with a stress test and what-if simulator.

Read the guides

For more on budgeting method and the alternative quick-rule approach, see How to Build a Monthly Budget Using the 50/30/20 Rule.

Not sure what your take-home pay actually is before you budget it? See How to Estimate Take-Home Pay Without Confusing Gross and Net Income.