Budget Template Selector Calculator

This calculator gives you a starting-point percentage split across housing, other needs, wants, savings, and debt repayment, based on which of three named templates you pick: a 50/30/20-style balanced split (28% housing, 22% other needs, 30% wants, 15% savings, 5% debt), a conservative 70/20/10 debt-focused split (30/25/15/10/20), or an aggressive FI/RE savings split (25/20/10/35/10). From there it applies two adjustments: choosing "high-cost area" adds 5 points to housing and trims wants by up to 5, and larger households shift a few points from wants into the "other needs" category, since more people means more baseline spending on groceries, utilities, and transportation regardless of income — households of 4+ get the bigger adjustment (needs +5, wants -3) and also trim savings by 2 points, while 2-3 person households get a smaller shift (needs +2, wants -2) that leaves savings untouched. All five percentages are then rescaled so they sum to exactly 100%, and the tool multiplies each by your monthly take-home income to produce dollar targets per category.

This is a rule-of-thumb allocator, not a budget built from your actual bills — it doesn't know your real rent, debt balances, or spending history, so treat the percentages as a sensible default to adjust against, not gospel. It's most useful as a sanity check: if your actual housing spending is far above the suggested percentage for your income and location, that's a signal worth investigating, and if your real numbers don't fit any template well, a debt-payoff or zero-based budget calculator built from your actual line items will serve you better than adjusting these percentages further.