Calculator
50/30/20 Calculator
Take-home pay split into needs, wants, and savings lanes.
The 50/30/20 split was popularised by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi in All Your Worth: half of take-home pay to needs, thirty percent to wants, twenty percent to saving and debt beyond the minimums. It works on take-home pay, not gross.
It is a starting frame, not a rule. In an expensive rental market the needs half is often impossible, and that result is information rather than failure: it says the housing line is the thing to work on, not the coffee.
Results
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Type your numbers on the left and press Calculate. Nothing you enter is saved.
See a worked example
Example figures
- Monthly take-home income$3,200
Example results
Needs (about 50%)$1,600
Wants (about 30%)$960
Savings & extra debt (about 20%)$640
Needs: housing, utilities, basic groceries, transport to work, insurance, minimum debt payments. Wants: dining, streaming, upgrades, hobbies. Savings lane: emergency fund, retirement, extra debt payments.
High-cost cities push needs past 50%: keep the lanes, change the numbers, and protect the savings lane hardest (shrink it last, restore it first).
Your results will appear here.
Type your numbers on the left and press Calculate. Nothing you enter is saved.
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Enter 0 where something doesn't apply.