What is the 50/30/20 budget rule?

The 50/30/20 rule splits your take-home pay into three slices — 50% for needs (rent, bills, groceries, minimum debt payments), 30% for wants (eating out, hobbies, subscriptions) and 20% for savings and extra debt repayment. It was popularised by US Senator Elizabeth Warren and is a simple starting point because it works at almost any income level.

Should I use my gross or take-home pay?

Always use take-home (net) pay — the amount that actually arrives in your account after income tax, national insurance or social security, and pension contributions. Budgeting from gross pay overstates what you can spend because a large slice never reaches you.

What counts as a 'need' versus a 'want'?

Needs are things you genuinely cannot skip this month — housing, utilities, essential food, transport to work, insurance and minimum debt payments. Wants are everything that improves life but is optional — dining out, streaming, holidays, upgrades. If cancelling it would not threaten your home, health or job, it is a want.

Is 50/30/20 realistic in a high cost-of-living area?

Often not. If rent alone eats 50% of your pay, switch to the 70/20/10 preset, which gives needs more room, or build a custom split. The tool lets you set any percentages and the 'Scale to 100%' button rebalances them, so you can model a budget that fits your real costs instead of forcing the textbook numbers.

How much of my paycheck should go to savings?

20% is the classic target, but the right number depends on your goals and age. If you are debt-free and chasing early retirement, the aggressive-saver preset pushes 40% into savings and investing. If you are paying down high-interest debt, treat that repayment as part of your savings slice — clearing 20% APR debt beats almost any investment.

Does this paycheck splitter store my income anywhere?

No. Every calculation runs in your browser using JavaScript. Your pay figure and custom buckets are saved only to your own device via localStorage so the page remembers them next visit — nothing is ever sent to a server, and clearing your browser data removes it.

Paycheck Splitter — Gera Tools

A paycheck splitter turns a single take-home figure into a clear, visual spending plan. Type in what actually lands in your account each payday and the tool instantly allocates it across needs, wants and savings — using the famous 50/30/20 rule, the cost-of-living-friendly 70/20/10 variant, an aggressive-saver profile, the six-jars system, or buckets you define yourself. A live doughnut chart and a needs/wants/savings roll-up update as you type or drag the sliders, so you can see the trade-offs in real time instead of doing percentage maths in your head.

It is built for the moment a paycheck arrives and you want a fast, honest answer to “where should this money go?” — whether you are setting up a budget for the first time, checking that your spending still fits a rule of thumb, or modelling how a pay rise changes your savings rate. Because everything is editable, it works just as well for a student splitting a part-time wage as for a household allocating a monthly salary.

How it works

Enter your take-home (net) pay — the amount after tax and deductions — and pick the pay period: weekly, fortnightly, monthly or annual. Choose a preset to load a ready-made ruleset, or start editing to go custom. Each bucket has a name, a category (need, want or savings) and a percentage. The tool multiplies your pay by each percentage to show the cash amount, then groups the buckets by category so you can see the headline needs/wants/savings split at a glance.

The percentages do not have to total exactly 100% while you experiment — the allocation bar tells you when you are over, under or balanced, and the Scale to 100% button proportionally rebalances every bucket so it adds up perfectly. The summary panel also estimates your annual savings rate by projecting the savings slice across the whole year. When the plan looks right, export it as a CSV to drop into a spreadsheet or share it. Everything — your pay, buckets and chosen preset — is saved to your browser via localStorage, so the page remembers your setup next time.

Example

Suppose your monthly take-home pay is £3,000 and you use the default 50/30/20 split:

Bucket	Category	Percent	Monthly	Annual
Needs	Needs	50%	£1,500	£18,000
Wants	Wants	30%	£900	£10,800
Savings & debt	Savings	20%	£600	£7,200

That is a 20% savings rate — £600 every month, £7,200 a year. Switch to the aggressive-saver preset and the savings slice jumps to 40% (£1,200/month, £14,400/year) while wants shrink to 15%. Drag the sliders to find the balance you can actually live with; the chart and totals follow instantly.

Every figure is calculated in your browser — no income data is uploaded or stored on any server.