Budget Planner
Fill in your monthly net income and typical expenses — the planner shows your surplus, your savings rate, and how your spending compares to the classic 50/30/20 guideline.
The 50/30/20 rule
A simple benchmark for a healthy budget: at most 50% of net income on needs (housing, food, transport, insurance, minimum debt payments), up to 30% on wants (leisure, subscriptions, eating out), and at least 20% to savings and extra debt repayment. Few real budgets fit perfectly — expensive-city rents alone can break the 50% — but the comparison instantly shows where your money differs from the guideline and where the easiest wins are.
What to do with the surplus
Give every surplus euro a job, in this order: first a 3–6 month emergency fund, then clearing expensive debt (see the early repayment calculator), then long-term investing — the compound interest calculator shows what your monthly surplus becomes over 20 years. If the surplus is negative, the three biggest levers in almost every budget are housing, the car, and recurring subscriptions.
Where budgets actually leak
Across households the same three leaks appear again and again. Subscriptions: streaming, apps, gym and insurance renewals quietly ratchet upward — an annual cancel-and-renegotiate pass typically recovers €30–80 a month. Food outside the plan: not restaurants as such, but the unplanned deliveries and lunches that never made it into any category. The car: when counted honestly (payment, insurance, fuel, parking, depreciation) it is often the second-largest line in the budget, and the one where a different choice — a smaller car, one car instead of two — moves hundreds per month.
From surplus to system
A budget that requires monthly willpower fails within a quarter. The version that works is mechanical: on payday, standing orders move the savings share out first — into the emergency fund, then investments — and whatever remains in the account is genuinely spendable. This "pay yourself first" inversion is the entire trick; the categories above just tell you how big the first transfer can be.