Expense Trackers
Managing money takes two habits: deciding in advance where it should go, and recording where it actually went. These tools cover both sides, and they suit households, students and freelancers with irregular income who want a clear picture without linking a bank account to anything. The Budget Planner is the forward-looking one. You enter income and then allocate it across categories such as rent, food, transport and savings, and it shows what is left over or where the plan is already short. It is the right place to start a new month, a shared household arrangement or a savings push, because it forces the allocation to add up before real money moves. The Expense Tracker is the backward-looking one. You log purchases as they happen and it totals them by category, which is how you find out that small regular spending is doing more damage than the occasional large bill. Over a few weeks it produces the real numbers your next budget should be built on. Used together, the loop is straightforward: plan in the planner, record in the tracker, then adjust the plan using what the tracker showed. Both run in your browser, with no account required and no financial details sent anywhere.
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How the budget is calculated
Each group is then expressed as a percentage of income: needs percentage = needs total / income x 100, and the same for wants and for savings. Whatever remains after all three groups are subtracted from income is your unallocated surplus, or a shortfall if the three groups exceed what you earn.
Those three percentages are placed against the 50/30/20 benchmark, a budgeting guideline popularised by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi: half your take-home pay to needs, three tenths to wants, and a fifth to savings and debt repayment. The planner does not enforce the split; it shows the gap between your actual allocation and the target, leaving the judgement to you. Your figures are saved in your browser's local storage, so nothing is sent anywhere to produce the result.
Worked example on a monthly income of 3,200
The percentages work out as needs 1,750 / 3,200 = 54.7 per cent, wants 400 / 3,200 = 12.5 per cent, and savings 550 / 3,200 = 17.2 per cent. Together these come to 2,700, leaving 500 unallocated, which is 15.6 per cent of income.
Against the 50/30/20 targets, needs are 4.7 points over, wants are well under, and savings are just short of the 20 per cent mark, which would require 640. The obvious move is to route 90 of the unallocated 500 into savings to hit the target, leaving 410 genuinely spare. The high needs share is driven by rent, which is typical in expensive cities.
Making the plan realistic and what it cannot tell you
Annual and irregular costs need to be spread. Insurance premiums, car servicing, professional memberships and Christmas all belong in the plan as one twelfth of the yearly amount, listed under needs or wants as appropriate. Leaving them out is why budgets that balance on paper still run short.
The needs and wants boundary is where most people fool themselves. A phone contract is a need; the flagship handset tier is partly a want. Broadband is a need if you work from home. Be consistent month to month so the trend is meaningful.
Treat the 50/30/20 split as a guideline, not a rule. High housing costs, debt repayment or a low income can push needs well above half, and that is not a failure. This tool provides general information and is not financial advice.