Budget Planner

Start with what comes in: list every income source by name and amount — salary, a side gig, freelance work — so the planner can total your real monthly take-home pay. Next, fill in what you spend across categories like Housing, Transport, Food, Utilities, Insurance, Entertainment, Savings, Debt, and Other. The tool subtracts total expenses from total income and shows the result as a surplus (green) or deficit (red), so you instantly know whether the month balances. Each expense line also displays what percentage of your income it eats, which makes an oversized rent or grocery figure jump out. The key to a budget that sticks is accuracy, so use last month's bank and card statements rather than rough guesses. Enter your numbers above and the surplus, chart, and 50/30/20 split update as you type.

A widely used guideline is to keep housing under 30% of your gross monthly income, and within the 50/30/20 framework rent sits inside the 50% "needs" bucket alongside transport, food, utilities, and insurance. On a $5,000 monthly income that points to roughly $1,500 for rent or mortgage, though people in high-cost cities routinely spend more and trim other categories to compensate. The planner shows the exact percentage of income each expense line consumes, so you can see at a glance whether housing is crowding out savings. There is no universal correct number — what matters is that your total needs, wants, and savings still leave you with a surplus. Enter your rent and income above to see your housing percentage and how it fits the 50/30/20 breakdown in real time.

Needs are essentials you genuinely cannot skip without consequences: housing, transport to work, groceries, utilities, insurance, and the minimum payments on any debt. Wants are discretionary lifestyle spending you could pause if money got tight — dining out, entertainment, streaming subscriptions, shopping, and hobbies. The line can blur: a phone plan is a need, but the premium tier is partly a want, and groceries are a need while frequent takeout leans toward wants. In the 50/30/20 rule the planner uses, needs should target about 50% of income and wants about 30%. Sorting your spending this way reveals where a tight month has room to flex, since you trim wants long before needs. Use the planner above to enter each category, see its share of your income, and judge which lines are truly essential.

A deficit means your expenses exceed your income for the month, so the planner shows a negative bottom line in red — you are spending more than you earn and covering the gap with savings or debt. To fix it you have two levers: increase income or cut spending, and cutting is usually faster. Start with the categories showing the largest percentage of income, then target wants — dining, subscriptions, and shopping — before touching needs like housing or utilities. Because the tool recalculates instantly, you can test changes as a what-if: lower a category, watch the deficit shrink toward zero, and keep adjusting until you reach a surplus. Even a small positive number beats a deficit, since it stops the slide and starts building a buffer. Enter your figures above and trim categories until the bottom line turns green.

Yes. The planner has an Export CSV button that downloads your entire budget — every income source, all your expense categories, and the total income, total expenses, and surplus or deficit — as a standard comma-separated file. A CSV opens directly in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers, or any spreadsheet app, so you can archive each month, build a year-long history, or run your own charts and formulas on the data. Saving a copy is worth doing because the tool itself does not store your figures between visits; everything runs in your browser and clears when you leave, which keeps your salary and spending private but means there is no saved account to return to. Export the file to keep a record you can reopen and compare whenever your finances change. Build your budget above, then click Export CSV to download it.