Build a monthly budget with the 50/30/20 rule, zero-based budgeting, or 70/20/10. Take-home pay is calculated from real 2026 tax tables.
Half of take-home pay covers needs, up to 30% covers wants, and at least 20% goes to savings and extra debt payments. Minimum debt payments count as needs.
Your effective rate is calculated from 2026 federal brackets, Social Security and Medicare, and your state's wage tax. Override it if your paystub says otherwise.
The bills you cannot skip. Minimum debt payments belong here — only payment above the minimum counts as savings.
Spending you choose. Cutting here is what frees money for the categories above and below.
Money that builds net worth: savings, investing, and any debt payment beyond the minimum.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures what households actually spend. In 2024 the average household spent $78,535 across all categories. These shares are of total spending, not of income — so your column below is your share of what you assigned.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2024, all consumer units. Monthly figures are annual averages divided by 12.
| Category | U.S. Average | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Rent or Mortgage | $1,360 | 20.8% |
| Utilities | $395 | 6.0% |
| Transportation | $1,110 | 17.0% |
| Groceries | $519 | 7.9% |
| Dining Out | $329 | 5.0% |
| Healthcare | $516 | 7.9% |
| Entertainment | $301 | 4.6% |
| Personal Care | $82 | 1.2% |
| Insurance & Pensions | $817 | 12.5% |
The survey has no separate line for childcare or for debt principal, so those two are absent from this table. Its savings line combines retirement contributions, Social Security and life insurance.
This is an educational estimate, not tax or financial advice. The effective tax rate assumes the standard deduction and no credits, pre-tax deferrals, or itemized deductions, so your real paycheck may differ — use the override field if it does. Head of household is calculated on the federal head-of-household schedule and the single state schedule.
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Most budget calculators ask you to guess your tax rate, and the guess decides every number that follows. This one calculates it: federal brackets, Social Security and Medicare, and your state's wage tax, applied to the income you enter. Then it sorts your spending into the method you choose — the 50/30/20 rule, zero-based budgeting, or 70/20/10 — and tells you which category is actually out of line, not just whether money is left over. Finally it puts your spending next to what the Bureau of Labor Statistics says American households really spend, so you can see whether your rent is high or your grocery bill is normal.
The 50/30/20 rule splits your take-home pay three ways: 50% for needs, 30% for wants, and 20% for savings and debt payoff. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau states it as applying 50 percent of take-home pay to needs, 20 percent to savings and debt payments, and no more than 30 percent to wants. Needs are the things you cannot skip — housing, utilities, groceries, transportation, insurance, childcare, and the minimum payments on your debts. Wants are everything you choose. The 20% is savings, investing, and any debt payment above the minimum. The rule was popularized by Elizabeth Warren in All Your Worth, and its value is not precision but a fast read on which of the three is out of proportion.
Formula
Find out what your salary actually pays after tax, and what that leaves for rent before you sign a lease.
See exactly how far housing pushes needs past 50%, and which other categories have to absorb it.
Use zero-based budgeting to assign every dollar, and watch extra debt payments count toward savings rather than needs.
Model a new salary in a new state and see the take-home difference, not just the gross difference.
Childcare is a need, and it is often the line that breaks a budget that worked before. Enter it and see what has to give.
Enter gross pay, filing status and state, and the effective rate is calculated from 2026 federal brackets, FICA and the state wage tax — with an override for anyone whose paystub differs.
Having money left over does not mean the budget works. This tells you which category is over its target and by how much, so you know what to change.
Minimum payments are needs; anything above them is savings. Collapsing the two into one field is what makes most budget tools report needs as comfortably under 50% when they are not.
See your share of spending next to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, so 'is my rent too high' has an answer instead of a rule of thumb.
Switch between 50/30/20, zero-based and 70/20/10 without retyping anything, and see how the same spending reads under each.
It allocates 50% of take-home pay to needs, 30% to wants, and 20% to savings and debt payoff. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publishes it as a rule of thumb, phrasing it as 50 percent of take-home pay to needs, 20 percent to savings and debt payments, and no more than 30 percent to wants. It was popularized by Elizabeth Warren in her book All Your Worth.
Needs. A minimum payment is contractually required, which puts it in the same category as rent. Only the amount you pay above the minimum belongs in the 20%, because that is the part reducing what you owe faster than required. This calculator asks for the two separately for exactly that reason — combining them makes needs look smaller than they are.
Net — your take-home pay. The percentages in every one of these methods are shares of what actually reaches your account. Budgeting on gross income plans to spend money that goes to tax.
From your gross income, filing status and state: 2026 federal income tax brackets and the standard deduction, employee-side Social Security and Medicare, and your state's wage tax schedule. It is a full-year liability estimate, so it will not match a paycheck that has 401(k) deferrals, health premiums, or tax credits in it. Enter your own rate to override it.
The common guidance is no more than 30% of gross income on housing. Under the 50/30/20 rule, housing sits inside needs, which is capped at 50% of take-home pay for housing, utilities, groceries, transportation, insurance, childcare and minimum debt payments combined. The Consumer Expenditure Survey table on this page shows shelter averaging about 21% of what U.S. households actually spend.
Zero-based budgeting assigns every dollar a job until nothing is unassigned; it has no percentage targets at all. The 50/30/20 rule sets three proportions and does not care how you divide within them. Zero-based takes more work and gives more control; 50/30/20 gives a fast read on whether the proportions are sane.
It puts 70% of take-home pay toward all living costs in one combined bucket, 20% toward savings and investments, and 10% toward giving or extra debt payments. It is simpler than 50/30/20 because it does not ask you to argue with yourself about whether something is a need or a want.
That is common and it is usually housing. Because needs are mostly fixed, the fastest levers are the large ones: housing cost, transportation, and insurance shopped on price. In the short term the wants share absorbs the gap, which the calculator will show you as a wants figure well under 30%. Treat a needs share above 50% as a signal about the size of your fixed costs relative to your pay, not as a spending-discipline problem.
The rule says at least 20% of take-home pay, counting retirement contributions, emergency savings, and debt payments above the minimum. If you are starting from nothing, the more useful first target is a starter emergency fund; the savings rate this calculator reports tells you where you currently stand.
Spending. The Consumer Expenditure Survey reports average annual expenditures and the share each category takes of that total, so the comparison on this page divides your category by your own total assigned spending. Comparing a share of spending against a share of income would rank every category wrongly.