50/30/20 calculator
Half for essentials, 30% for choices, 20% for saving and debt. It is the best-known budgeting rule there is — and the first to stop working when rent is heavy. Enter your income to see the figures, and your essentials to see whether the rule fits you.
What comes in each month, after tax.
Optional. Rent or mortgage, bills, food, transport.
The rule, applied to your income
Enter your monthly net income.
The arithmetic happens in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server, nothing is stored, and the figures disappear the moment you reload the page.
Where it comes from, and what each part means
Essentials are what you cannot stop paying without changing how you live: housing, bills, food, transport, healthcare, and minimum debt payments. Choices are whatever is genuinely your decision this month — eating out, subscriptions, travel. The 20% is saving, an emergency fund, and paying down debt beyond the minimum.
The line between essential and choice is more arguable than the rule implies. A phone is essential; the tariff you picked may not be. Deciding once and staying consistent matters more than getting the definition right.
The rule is a reference, not an obligation. It was popularised when housing took a smaller share of a typical budget than it does in most cities today — which is why plenty of people now call it unrealistic.
When the rule does not fit
It is an educational tool, not financial advice. We know nothing about your situation and are not telling you how to divide your money.
If essentials already pass 50%, the rule is not failing you — it is describing a budget that is not yours. What usually helps is keeping the ratio between choices and saving and applying it to what is left, which is what the comparison above does.
With irregular income, applying percentages to a single month misleads. An average across three to six months gives a truer picture.
With expensive debt — credit cards, high-rate personal loans — a fixed split is arguable, because every euro repaid returns, guaranteed, the interest you stop paying.
The percentages are the beginning.
Bolso follows budgets by category with alerts, so you see where the month is drifting while there is still time to correct it.
