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Split your income into spending categories and see if you have a surplus or shortfall.
Enter your income (monthly or fortnightly) and add categories like rent, bills, groceries and savings. We’ll show total allocated, surplus or shortfall and a breakdown by category.
Monthly income
$6,000
Total allocated
$3,800
Surplus
$2,200
Left over after allocated spending.
Estimate only. Use as a guide to see where your money goes and whether you have room to save.
Budgeting guidelines like the 20% savings rate and 30% housing benchmark are general rules of thumb, not ATO or regulatory requirements.
This calculator is not intended to be relied on for the purposes of making a decision in relation to a financial product. Before you make a financial decision, consider obtaining advice from someone who holds an Australian Financial Services Licence. We do not, and we cannot advise you.
A monthly budget is a plan that divides your income into spending and saving categories. It helps you see where your money goes and whether you are living within your means.
Comparing income to category totals shows if you have a surplus (money left over) or a shortfall (spending more than you earn).
The categories matter less than the discipline of having any at all — six broad buckets (rent, bills, groceries, transport, savings, other) are usually enough to catch a shortfall early, without the overhead of tracking every individual transaction line by line.
Use whichever matches when you get paid. If you're paid fortnightly, select Fortnightly and enter your take-home per fortnight; we convert to monthly for comparison.
Look at the breakdown and trim non-essential categories, or find ways to increase income. Even small cuts add up.
20% is a common rule of thumb (as in the 50/30/20 budget: 50% needs, 30% wants, 20% savings), but the right number depends on your goals, debt and cost of living — treat it as a starting point to adjust, not a fixed target.
A common guideline is no more than 30% of gross income on housing, though this varies a lot by city and household. If housing is well above that, it constrains every other category and is usually the first thing worth reviewing.
Budget against your lowest reliable month rather than an average, and treat anything earned above that as a bonus to allocate to savings or debt once it actually arrives, rather than spending against income you haven't received yet.
No — most people get useful results from six to eight broad categories reviewed monthly. Tracking every transaction individually is more accurate but adds effort that causes many people to abandon budgeting altogether within a few weeks.
Estimates only. Not financial or tax advice. Full disclaimer for your rights and our limitations of liability.
This calculator exists to show you the arithmetic. It applies published Australian rates, thresholds and formulas to the numbers you enter and shows the working, so you can check it. That is all it does — it produces a number and describes what the number is. It does not recommend anything and it holds no opinion about any financial product.
What can move this result
This calculator is not intended to be relied on for the purposes of making a decision in relation to a financial product. Before you make a financial decision, consider obtaining advice from someone who holds an Australian Financial Services Licence. We do not, and we cannot advise you.