Budget Calculator
Enter your monthly income and what you spend by category. See exactly what's left over, your savings rate, and a visual breakdown of where the money actually goes. No sign-up, nothing saved anywhere but your own browser.
Where your money goes
Each category as a share of your income. Hover or tab through a segment for the exact amount.
How this calculator works
Enter your take-home income, then break your spending into six categories: housing, transportation, food and groceries, debt payments, insurance and utilities, and everything else. The calculator adds up your expenses, subtracts them from your income, and shows the leftover amount, your savings rate, and a bar showing exactly how much of your income each category takes up. Nothing is sent to a server. The numbers stay in your browser, and the calculator remembers your last entry so you don't have to retype it next time you visit.
This is a single-month snapshot, not an ongoing spreadsheet. Most people get the most out of it by re-running it once a month with that month's real numbers, the same low-effort habit behind the habit snowball.
A worked example
Say your take-home income is $4,500 a month. Housing is $1,400, transportation is $350, food and groceries is $500, debt payments are $300, insurance and utilities is $250, and everything else adds up to $600. That's $3,400 in total expenses, leaving $1,100 a month, a savings rate of about 24%. The bar chart shows housing as by far the largest slice, which is typical: it's usually the biggest lever if the leftover number needs to move.
What if my expenses are more than my income?
The calculator flags it directly instead of showing a leftover amount: a callout tells you how much you're short each month, and the chart switches to showing spending as a share of total expenses instead of income, with a marker showing where your income actually runs out. Start with whichever category is largest. If debt payments are a big piece of it, the debt payoff calculator shows how extra payments shorten that timeline.
What counts as "after tax" income?
Whatever actually lands in your account: paycheck after tax, benefits, and any automatic retirement contribution that comes out before you see it. Using take-home pay instead of gross salary keeps the leftover number honest, since taxes aren't optional spending you can trim.
Why only six categories?
Six is enough to see the real shape of a budget without turning this into a full expense tracker. If you want more detail long term, see how to track spending without a spreadsheet for a lighter-weight system than a full line-by-line ledger.
Is there a spreadsheet version of this?
Yes. The free budget spreadsheet uses the same six categories as this calculator, one tab for every month of the year, plus an overview dashboard, a savings and debt payoff tracker, and a net worth tab. It's a plain file with no sign-up and nothing sent anywhere, so use whichever format you'll actually keep using.
Is 20% a good savings rate?
It's a common target, most associated with the 50/30/20 rule (50% needs, 30% wants, 20% savings and debt paydown). It's a reasonable default, not a requirement. Your right number depends on your income, your debt, your goals, and your local cost of living.
Comments
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